water & air quality Clearing the air
The NHS is spending £900m a year on asthma care as poor air quality mars millions of lives. Andy Makin of EnviroVent explains how ventilation issues in the home could be a root cause.
O
ne of the major issues facing landlords and social housing providers, especially during the colder months, is poor indoor air quality in residents’ homes.
In a recent survey, 58 per cent of householders said they experienced
condensation at home, with over a fifth saying their property had a problem with mould. The issue is worse in the winter months when windows and doors are kept closed because the relative humidity inside the home is higher. Vulnerable people, such as the young, the elderly and those with illnesses, are most at risk. Without a continuous flow of fresh air into and out of a dwelling, the
internal atmosphere may reach a high relative humidity of around 70-80 per cent, which then leads to condensation. The water droplets that form on colder surfaces can stimulate mould growth and, in some cases, result in damage to the building fabric itself.
Too airtight
After World War II, there was a dedicated focus on the rebuilding and redevelopment of properties and, over the past 40 years, homes have been improved with energy-efficient upgrades, including double glazing, new external doors, plus cavity wall and loft insulation. This has effectively made homes sealed boxes, trapping moisture inside
and resulting in condensation. If you factor an average four-person family into that sealed home, with each person emitting around 16 pints of moisture per day, the result will be a high level of humidity. Added to this are the numerous litres of water that are emitted into the atmosphere from drying clothes indoors during the colder months. The result is most commonly recognised as ‘damp’, of which the most visible manifestation is condensation and mould growth. The worst affected properties are new builds and properties that have been built in the past 20 years since Building Regulations were introduced. This is due to the energy-efficient measures that have been introduced without fitting adequate ventilation.
‘Toxic’ homes
The outcome of this failure to ventilate properly is more condensation and a growth in mould spores. This creates ideal conditions for dust mites to thrive. The airborne detritus from dust mites has been shown to exacerbate the symptoms of asthma and other breathing related conditions. This makes for a lethal cocktail, leading to poor indoor air quality or ‘toxic home syndrome’, where the inside atmosphere is almost twice as polluted as that outside. Other pollutants that can cause problems inside the home without adequate ventilation include volatile organic compounds, which are commonly found in furniture, fabrics and chemicals. There may also be tobacco smoke and, in some regions of the country, there is a problem with Radon gas that is harmful to long-term health and can add to the problem of poor indoor air quality.
“Landlords address damp and mould growth by upgrading insulation or adding new heating systems, but do not tackle the cause of the problem – a serious lack of ventilation”
Health costs
The cost of poor indoor air quality is being widely recognised, and with local authorities now in control of their own health budget, many are beginning to see that improving air quality in the home can help them make significant savings. For instance, currently in the UK, there are 5.2 million people receiving treatment for asthma (Source: Asthma UK). Asthma care and services cost the NHS around £900m per year. There are also 12.7 million lost working days per year due to asthma-related conditions. In addition, there are 11,500 deaths and 74,000 emergency hospital admissions, showing the scale of the problem. The BRE has recently released its report The Full Cost of Poor Housing,
commissioned by the Government. The definition of ‘poor housing’ in the report is that which fails to meet the current minimum standard for
Retrofit solutions such as Positive Input Ventilation (PIV) can help to improve air quality
54 | HMM November 2016 |
www.housingmmonline.co.uk
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