Module 7 · Proportionate Remediation

7.5 Interventions People Can Actually Run

8 min read

Module 6 treated ventilation as a design question within a retrofit. As a remediation it meets something different: an actual household with an actual income, a heating pattern they can afford, and a tolerance for noise and controls. A specification that ignores all of that is technically correct and will be switched off within a month — and the report that produced it will be cited as evidence that ventilation does not work.

Learning objectives

By the end of this lesson you will be able to:

Assess whether an intervention will be operated as specified.
Specify heating and ventilation remediation that survives contact with the household.
Address affordability without either ignoring it or condescending.
Distinguish advice to the occupant from advice to the duty-holder.

Key terms

Operational reality: Whether the specified measure will actually run as intended, given cost, noise, controls and the occupant's circumstances.
Fuel poverty: Where the cost of adequate warmth is beyond a household's means. A direct moisture risk factor, because unheated surfaces are cold surfaces.
Set-point and pattern: The temperature maintained and when. Intermittent heating produces cold surfaces between periods, and surface temperature is what governs mould.
Duty-holder advice: Recommendations directed at the party who controls the building, as distinct from advice to an occupant about how to live.

Part of the paid course

Read the rest of Proportionate Remediation

Module 1 is free to read in full — Proportionate Remediation is part of the £299 practitioner course. Enrol with your email below, then buy on the course page: because you'll already be enrolled, that's one click straight to checkout, with nothing to type twice.