Module 8 · Reporting, Ethics and Practice
8.4 When You Also Sell the Remedy
9 min read
In much of this trade the party who diagnoses is the party who sells the remedy, and frequently the party who guarantees it. That arrangement is legal, common, and it systematically shapes what gets found. Module 4.8 explained the cognitive mechanism; this lesson is about what to do — because the answer is not "try harder to be objective", which does not work, but a set of structural practices that do.
Learning objectives
By the end of this lesson you will be able to:
- Describe how the specifier-installer arrangement shapes diagnosis without intent.
- Apply practical safeguards where you operate in that arrangement.
- Disclose an interest in terms that actually inform.
- Recognise where the conflict makes an instruction one to decline.
Key terms
- Structural conflict
- A conflict arising from the arrangement rather than from anyone's intentions. Not resolved by good faith, and not an accusation.
- Disclosure
- Telling the client the interest exists, in terms they can act on. Necessary and, on its own, insufficient.
- Separation
- Distinguishing the diagnosis from the sale — by person, by document, or by giving the client a real route to an independent opinion.
- Declining
- Refusing an instruction where the conflict cannot be managed. The remedy of last resort and occasionally the only honest one.
Read the rest of Reporting, Ethics and Practice
Module 1 is open to everyone. The remaining six modules — building science, each damp mechanism in depth, meters and thermal imaging, the full inspection method, and report writing — are free too. We just ask for an email so you can pick up where you left off, and so we can send your certificate when you finish.