Module 6 · Reporting Skills
6.4 Recommendations You Can Stand Behind
7 min read
A recommendation is where a report turns into money being spent. Get it wrong and a client pays for work that does not fix their problem — the exact failure this course exists to prevent. This lesson sets out what a beginner can safely recommend, what must be referred, and how to sequence advice so the cheap fixes are tried before the expensive ones.
Learning objectives
By the end of this lesson you will be able to:
- Distinguish recommendations within a beginner's competence from those that are not.
- Sequence recommendations by cost, risk and reversibility.
- Tie every recommendation to the evidence that justifies it.
- Set honest expectations about what each action will achieve.
Key terms
- Reversible action
- Something that can be undone if it does not help — clearing a gutter, changing a heating pattern.
- Referral
- Directing a matter to someone with the competence or equipment to specify or resolve it.
- Monitoring
- Recording conditions over time to establish behaviour before committing to remedial work.
- Proportionality
- Matching the scale of the intervention to the strength of the evidence and the size of the problem.
Free — enrol to continue
Read the rest of Reporting Skills
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.