Heating, Ventilation & Services Feature
Heating, Ventilation & Services
Everybody has a part to play in making the right application to drive down the issue of poor ventilation in social housing
During the last couple of years, Covid and the lockdown situation have exacerbated an already fragile situation in social housing, with a massive rise in disrepair cases which have overwhelmed the already stretched resources of many maintenance and repair departments. Te advice from the Government has been to ventilate to help stop the spread of Covid in homes. During the colder months of the year, most people will look to heat their
property over anything else. It is also natural to keep the windows closed for longer to retain heat; however, with poor or inadequate ventilation this invariably means keeping moisture laden air in – which will almost certainly lead to major condensation and mould issues in the most vulnerable properties. In recent times there have been several high profile cases highlighting the
tragic effect of what happens when poor indoor air quality is leſt to fester without good advice, and application. Tese have been well documented over the years by the media, and blame is oſten focused on the landlord. Tere is no one panacea that will conquer all the ills of poor ventilation
in social housing, however, everybody has a part to play in making the right application to drive this issue down. Everybody being surveyors, asset managers, product specifiers, maintenance managers, product installers, maintenance contractors, and even the tenants themselves can all contribute to help with good practice for ventilation in social housing stock. All parties involved with ventilation products should have an understanding of why this occurs through education and advice. Products that have been specified should not perform at the basic level to tick a box, and not be the
cheapest product. Ventilation products should be able to cope with reasonable moisture levels found in most homes when cooking, bathing, washing and drying clothes, especially during the cooler months in the year. Tere are very good products out there on the market, recent changes in the Building Regulations give enough guidance for higher performance levels. New reporting technologies are also playing a part to help monitor IAQ situations in homes, however the homes require high level ventilation equipment to aid situations in properties with overcrowding. Good ventilation education and advice for all parties involved needs to be
part of any changes if we stand a chance of reversing the current upward trend for disrepair cases. It would be nice to think that the vast majority of landlords in various guises are keen to get the usual properties off the reoccurring list on a permanent basis. Te major challenge of today comes with other factors not seen on such a level as cost of living increases, this played a part of the equation in the past and is now more widespread. So in essence the likelihood is that good ventilation can be achieved, there
just needs to be the desire and responsibility of all involved to make sure that better and higher levels of performance from products and applications are being used. Titon has the knowledge, experience and products to help any situation especially for Social Housing. Ventilation is key and an important part to any dwelling where people’s health can potentially be compromised.
Roy Byom is sales manager for social housing at Titon
www.housingmmonline.co.uk | HMMFebruary/March 2023 | 43
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