Module 6 · Retrofit and Moisture Risk
6.6 How Retrofits Actually Fail
9 min read
Post-retrofit damp cases arrive without their history, and the useful skill is recognising which of a small number of patterns you are looking at. They recur because they arise from the structure of how retrofit is procured and delivered rather than from unusual technical circumstances — which also means each has a check that would have caught it, and that check is what belongs in your recommendation.
Learning objectives
By the end of this lesson you will be able to:
- Recognise the recurring retrofit failure patterns from their site evidence.
- Identify the documentation that establishes what was assumed.
- Attribute a failure without overreaching on what the evidence supports.
- Recommend the check that prevents recurrence.
Key terms
- Measure-led delivery
- Installing a chosen measure across a stock, rather than assessing each dwelling and choosing measures for it. The structural origin of several of these patterns.
- Pre-existing condition
- A defect present before the works. Insulating over one is the most preventable failure in this list.
- Attribution
- Establishing what a failure was caused by, distinguishing works from pre-existing conditions and from occupancy change.
- As-built divergence
- The gap between what was designed and what was installed. Frequently the whole explanation, and invisible without documentation.
Read the rest of Retrofit and Moisture Risk
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.