#18 - Simon Jones: If not you, then who?

This week I ask the question.

If not you then who?

Who is going to measure ventilation in the context of retrofit assessment and other housing scenarios, beyond competent ventilation installers and assessors, and how might that look?

It was a question I raised in response to the publication of the RICS Residential Retrofit Standard.

Have a listen and let me know what you think

RICS Residential Retrofit Standard

Air quality matters in housing 

Transcript

Simon: 0:13

Welcome to Air Quality Matters and you've got me this week. I was posing the question online last week. If not you, then who? This was a question in response to a new residential retrofit standard from ricks, that's, if you're not familiar with it, the royal institute of chartered surveyors. They just produced this new standard and within it they were talking about measuring ventilation performance and I was making the point that. Does this mean now that all RICS members undertaking retrofit assessment will carry ventilation assessment equipment with them? I'm not sure that's likely to be the case, but it was reaching to a broader point that I've been making recently. I'll share a link in the podcast notes.

Simon: 1:03

But the residential retrofit standard by Rix is actually a really good standard, I think, and it's been produced by a really good group of people. It's effectively a set of professional guidelines that outlines clear rules and suggestions for Rix members who provide home retrofitting services. Its aims is to ensure that they meet their clients' needs with consistent, high quality advice and support, even as those needs change over time. I think this is really good, and this includes managing projects, conducting surveys and assessments, designing, specifying, overseeing contracts and evaluating projects. It's a set of minimum standards for offering such services and mandates that RICS members in the UK follow these guidelines. When RICS members or their firms take on one or more of the roles in providing these services, they must make sure that their work is well informed, thoroughly researched and focus on what best suits the client. These guidelines are also used to evaluate the performance of RICS members in delivering home retrofit services.

Simon: 2:18

In this document, the assessment or survey, as you probably expect for RICS, is a critical element of the retrofit services. As such, rics members and RICS regulated firms must satisfy themselves that a competent assessment of the property has been carried out before they act in a service role that does not include an assessment. For example, the particular part that I was commenting on which I thought was really interesting from a ventilation perspective and I'll read it verbatim out of the document, and it refers to what the expectation of an assessor is in the retrofit assessment. It says a detailed risk-based assessment of the existing building, including providing the client with an appropriate report considering context, condition, defects and suitability of previously installed EEMs, that's, energy efficiency measures, current EPC rating, recording all necessary information, including preparation of plans, sketches and photographs, etc. Assess occupancy current, anticipated or intended and performance, including current ventilation systems, and that was the bit that really caught my eye. It's the first time in one of these types of documents I've seen performance mentioned and them explicitly saying, including current ventilation systems.

Simon: 3:49

As you'd expect from Rex, this document very heavily leans on PAS 2030 and PAS 2035 and even goes on within one of the annexes to talk very specifically about ventilation and the provision of adequate ventilation. Again, if you don't mind, I'll read this bit out verbatim from the document. As you'd imagine, this document very heavily leans on past 2035 and past 2030 and even goes on to talk about ventilation specifically in one of the annexes. Pulled straight from past 2035, it says since the 1970s, the installation of double glazed, draft stripped windows, the draft stripping of external doors and the insulation of lofts and cavity walls have gradually improved energy efficiency but also reduced air permeability of many homes, reducing infiltration and air leakage. In some cases, this has been compensated for by the introduction of intermittent extract ventilation fans into wet spaces, that's, kitchens and bathrooms, to expel moist, stale air, and by installing background ventilators air in lengths, commonly known as trickle ventilators in other spaces to provide balancing supplies of fresh air.

Simon: 5:07

However, the existence of ventilation systems is not proof that a building is adequately ventilated and many existing buildings that have undergone energy efficiency improvements are not adequately ventilated. Ventilated, improving the air tightness of the dwelling to reduce advantageous or uncontrolled wind-driven air infiltration and air leakage, when combined with the provision of adequate controlled ventilation, significantly improves energy efficiency. However, without adequate ventilation, the installation of any additional insulation or air tightness measures anywhere in the building or the blocking of any existing ventilator reduces infiltration and air leakage rate and increases the risk that there is insufficient ventilation to maintain adequate indoor air quality. Poor indoor air quality includes high relative humidity, which carries a risk of condensation and mould growth, and high concentrations of pollution such as VOCs and dust mites, All of which are associated with serious health risks to occupants, as well as potential damage to building finishes, fabric and structure finishes, fabric and structure.

Simon: 6:22

So, on the face of it, this document is saying that it's critical that a building assessor or retrofit assessor understands the performance of ventilation when carrying out retrofit assessment, because adequate ventilation is so critical when managing risk within retrofit, and the point I was making in the post last week was that does this mean, then, that if you're going to do an adequate assessment for retrofit, that you're going to actually carrying around ventilation assessment equipment in order to do that, because surely they don't anticipate someone sticking a piece of tissue up to a grill and saying, yes, that's adequate ventilation. This spurred many conversations in the last week or so for me, some online in the comments that worth going checking out, I think, but also in person and over the phone with people as I started to try and understand a little bit more about what this might actually mean to assess, as if they were to actually start having to carry around this kind of equipment. But it goes to a much broader point in my opinion, and that is how do we actually start to define adequate ventilation in the context of retrofit, amongst other things like condensation, damp and mould programs or reactive maintenance programs or capital replacement programs? Are we now going to start taking ventilation seriously and actually start measuring ventilation performance as part of these checks? It's quite clear, I think, within many of the regulations, and you don't have to read any of them. It doesn't matter whether it's the Irish regulations or some of the European ones. If you look at PAS 2035 or SR 54 in Ireland, which looks at retrofit in dwellings, all of them point to the need for adequate ventilation. So we have to start understanding and unpacking what we mean by adequate ventilation.

Simon: 8:32

I think the UK Technical Guidance Documents ADF very clearly outline this in very plain English and in effect they say that adequate ventilation is met if you're extracting water, vapour and indoor air pollutants from areas produced before they spread. So that's local exhaust ventilation, or extract ventilation, if you like. You supply a minimum level of outdoor air for occupants that's background ventilation and you provide the ability to rapidly dilute habitable rooms through purge ventilation. That's the ability to open windows for special events like DIY or maintenance, for example, at the same time minimize the entry of external air pollutants, produce low levels of noise when you're providing ventilation and offer easy access for maintenance and protect people from cold drafts. But effectively, there are three core pillars for the provision of adequate ventilation. That's decent extract ventilation, good background ventilation and an ability to purge a building if you need to.

Simon: 9:43

So the question I was really posing in my post was, in the context of retrofit in this case, if not the assessor, who and at what point would ventilation be assessed as adequate or not, and how on earth would you assess its ability to extract properly or provide adequate background ventilation or general ventilation if you don't measure it. I think it's fairly obvious you can't give any materially useful information of a ventilation system and its performance if you don't measure it in some way. But what's happening on the ground in this case retrofitfit assessment, but this can also be stock condition surveys, void assessments, damp and mold surveys, that the list goes on is that the cost of these assessments is driven down. And the ventilation assessment in many cases is is there a fan and does it make a noise? Check there is ventilation and if there's no obvious signs of under ventilation, damp and mold on walls, then the assumption is that ventilation is okay. The what?

Simon: 10:56

Next question is how can a designer or coordinator or homeowner make an informed decision about the kind of measures proposed for a property without this context? Imagine taking your car for a service because it's not running properly and the mechanic lifts the hood and says, yep, you have an engine and, yes, it's making some noise, you're good to go. It's objectively nonsense. And remember, not all ventilation is going to manifest with obvious signs of moisture and mold problems. Air is far more complex than that. So if not you, the assessor, the person measuring the building or looking at this building's performance, then who is going to measure it and this is where it gets really interesting for me, I think, is going to measure it and this is where it gets really interesting for me, I think.

Simon: 11:50

I believe, personally, the road is running out fast for this kind of obfuscation and here's why, whether it's new build or retrofit or damper mold or anything else, there's an increasing expectation that ventilation systems need to perform and I don't mean that they will perform on paper, I mean that they will objectively be measured, as hinted in the RICS document and increasingly in retrofit and many of the modern standards and tested. And the more that this happens, the more and more the knowledge builds and a picture of what goods should look like within the marketplace and expectations are naturally, I I think, going to increase. And secondly, imagine for a moment that you could measure the performance of ventilation in most of the spaces that we occupy. I've said this many times before, but it's my firm belief that within the next decade, almost certainly all the buildings that we occupy, and probably most of the spaces we occupy within them, are going to have some form of environmental monitoring in them, letting us know exactly how these spaces are performing, and this changes the very dynamic of those kinds of conversations. Not only do we understand more and more what's expected of ventilation systems, but we are going to be judged by the ongoing performance of the spaces that we design, install and manage, and that changes the very dynamic of those conversations, and I see it. I see questions coming back from the built environment now that were different even five or 10 years ago. People understand more and more that buildings can provide information and help us understand whether or not things like ventilation are working properly or a building is at risk of condensation, damp or mold, and whether the built environment is ready for it or not.

Simon: 13:50

Ventilation is a key pillar for success in retrofit and many other facets of buildings and in that context, people are going to have to start standing over the performance of these systems. So what does assessing ventilation performance actually look like? This is where I had much of the second part of my conversations with people from this post, and that was really about what do we expect from people? Are we expecting people to be carrying around equipment now to measure ventilation systems? The kind of conversations I was having was you expect me to buy what? Now? How much does one of those cost? So let's assume for a moment that we're considering measuring ventilation at a far greater scale than we do currently.

Simon: 14:40

The retrofit void teams, condensation assessment teams, surveyors, asset teams, etc. Take an interest in the actual performance of ventilation systems. Okay, so, beyond the time taken to actually inspect a property properly, looking at background ventilation and undercuts under doors, air transfer devices and air paths within a space all the usual visual basics of an assessment what does measuring airflow actually look like? Well, for those that are used to this space, you'll know this. But those that aren't, this is where we start talking about those cones that people carry around with them and put up to grills and fans and actually start measuring airflow to determine whether an intermittent fan that was supposed to be extracting 15 liters a second is doing that or not.

Simon: 15:37

And there are three typical approaches to measuring ventilation, and they're called the unconditional, conditional, a minimum benchmark, certainly in this part of the world anyway, it starts with the unconditional method, and the unconditional method of airflow measurement is the preferred method of all installation scenarios because of its accuracy and simplicity. As its name suggests, it's a method that is free from site-specific conditions such as fan type or fan model or airflow direction, instrumentation characteristics and a bunch of other things. Effectively, what an unconditional test is is using one of these cones that's powered it's called a powered flow hood or a pressure compensating anemometer. What effectively it does is it balances itself and provides a measurement that's free from some of the characteristics we might encounter when we're measuring ventilation. The conditional method needs to take into account specific site conditions, such as fan performance characteristics, the resistance of the airflow device itself that you're using to measure airflow. You may need to look at things like conversion factors or K factors, depending on the type of measuring instrument you're using, and it's a testing and commissioning process that requires great care to consistently get right on site. The advantage of it is that we don't need to use the powered flow hoods. We can use standard measuring hoods that are significantly cheaper.

Simon: 17:15

This method, however, is less preferable to the unconditional method because you do have to make some calculations and, lastly, you have what's called the minimum benchmark method, and this has been established effectively for allowing testing of the cheaper, actual type decentralized fans, where you may not have some of the conversion factors available on that equipment to make an accurate measurement. And effectively, what this does is it takes, for example, if you want 15 litres a second on a bathroom fan. As long as you achieve 12, it's a pass. So it makes some very broad assumptions about the performance of the ventilation and, as you can imagine, if you're trying to get an accurate measurement, it's the least preferable solution. So great, you say we just go for the unconditional right. Sure, the device a powered flow hood will cost you several thousand euros and it's not the kind of equipment that you have bouncing around in your boot for the few times that you might use it in the week or month. And it will require, as do other types, to be fair, annual calibration.

Simon: 18:32

But do we really think we're going to see thousands upon thousands of these devices floating around within the hands of housing officers or regional asset managers or surveying teams? Probably not. So what about using slightly cheaper equipment and going through the conditional method? Well, it's very hard to get accurate measurements and requires a level of understanding of fan curves and k factors that's, to be frank, probably not practical for most people, unless they're using it very frequently and haven't got a decent amount of experience to get good results from, which only really leaves, if you think about it, the minimum benchmark methods, which is the least preferable option, but I think may have some value here.

Simon: 19:16

If you hear me out, what we're effectively dealing with here at the moment is a huge gap between what is a check boxing exercise of is there a fan and is it making a noise to having a competent ventilation assessment, with somebody with thousands of euros worth of equipment in their car to be able to provide you with the results you need on ventilation performance. Do we think we realistically certainly within the short to medium term going to bring the industry from holding a bit of tissue paper up to a fan to carrying around thousands of quids worth of equipment in the back of their vehicle? I don't think so. So what's the expectation here from my perspective? Well, in a lot of the cases, what we're trying to understand is are there significant gaps in performance of ventilation?

Simon: 20:14

I'm not asking for people with a lack of competency to be going around and getting within a litre of a second of airflow accuracy on a field measurement. This is broadly to understand. Are the systems that we're seeing getting you within the ballpark of the ventilation you need on site? And could we develop reasonable protocols for the assessment of ventilation by non-competent people and allow them to understand the ventilation's general performance accurately enough to be able to make the right decisions and at least trigger workflows, if necessary to bring somebody with more competence along. I believe we probably could, and can we catch significant underperformance? Well, yes, almost certainly.

Simon: 21:04

I'm working with several organizations at the moment, from housing organizations to surveying organizations, and we're putting these cheaper devices in the hands of people that are not competent ventilation people and with the right training and the right workflows, I think we can and we've shown it get them into a position where they can very quickly build up a decent awareness of what they expect a ventilation system to be doing and is it within that ballpark and, if not, create a robust workflow that gets the right people on site to deal with it. And what I've also seen, which is very powerful, is it starts to create an awareness of performance and develop workflows that start to answer the what next questions. And for manufacturers out there, this is a warning shot across your bow that dog shite that you sell, that you know doesn't stand a chance of performing. You're very quickly going to get found out, and we're seeing this with very real conversations on site where all of a sudden, I have asset managers and people on site going told me is actually BS, isn't it? Because I can see that that system doesn't stand a chance now of achieving the kind of flow rates that I want.

Simon: 22:29

And if you think I'm joking about this, as one MD of a major ventilation manufacturer put it to me just this week, he knows the low-cost fans that he sells don't perform, but he sells them anyway because others do and he doesn't want to lose the sale. Prepare, in those circumstances, for your brand to become junk very quickly in the opinions of the people that are making the purchasing decisions on the ground. When they start to develop an awareness of performance, the road runs out very quickly indeed for you. And now, all of a sudden, if we start thinking in terms of performance, manufacturers may start producing fan curves for their products that make technical sense and aren't just sales material. Because as the technical competency raises and perhaps people start looking for the conditional testing methods, you might find that they start looking for those types of fan curves to understand and be more accurate with their measurements. And, yes, the market for qualified, competent assessors of ventilation who have invested in powered hoods will start to get called under these workflows to provide the on-point numbers for people when they start to identify cases that don't seem to fit. There's a long way to go, but I can tell you the clients that I'm working with that are starting to measure ventilation as part of existing processes, have in every case expanded it out to wider teams. It clearly is a powerful trigger and a reframing for many organisations within housing when they start to think in terms of performance for these systems rather than just replacing systems like for like, and it makes for some very uncomfortable conversations with sales representatives pushing the same old bullshit. When the asset manager, or whoever it is, knows how to calculate ventilation rates and, more importantly, is in a position to check that what he's buying is delivering, it starts to change the dynamic of those relationships too. And lastly, why is this important? Well, we should know by now or you do if you listen to the podcast how important air quality is. Unless we start to view ventilation from the performance perspective rather than the product perspective, we're going to see the same results repeating themselves. And there was yet another report out a few weeks ago, this time on retrofit in ireland, but I could point to literally any other study over the last decades that's looked at consistent levels of underperformance every single time this is looked at.

Simon: 25:20

Many of these projects, schemes or endeavors, or whatever you want to call them, have some form of government subsidy or grant behind them or, at the very least, have organizations that are part funded to facilitate or promote them, etc. This global renovation wave, but wider than that, the investment in housing more broadly, is objectively not getting what it's paying for. I don't believe it's a lack of regulation at this stage. This is a delivery and accountability problem and what I want to know is when are we going to start getting some of that accountability? This is the public purse and it is not getting value for money In the order of magnitude of 60 to 90%. Not getting value for money. It should be a scandal.

Simon: 26:15

Much of the improvements we could see could be driven by doing what is supposed to have been done and has already been paid for, and the benefits could be enormous to society. So I ask my original question If not you in the process of whatever you do in housing, then who? Who is going to measure ventilation systems If it's not the assessor or the surveyor or the person looking at the property? Is it really likely to be a retrofit coordinator. How is a retrofit designer going to measure ventilation? Is it their job? At some point? Somebody will need to take responsibility for this. Before I finish up, last week I had the amazing alora kelp on talking about her own space and how we communicate with a stakeholder group, in her case, women in retrofit. Next week I have another fantastic guest on to keep the communication theme going, talking about user experience in the built environment and retrofit more broadly. Thanks as always for taking the time to listen. I'm Simon Jones and this is Air Quality Matters.