Featured Image: Natural Ventilation The Department of Energy
In England and Wales, social housing has an energy efficiency rating of 67.9 – an Energy Performance Certificate rating of D.
This was 9% more energy efficient than privately rented properties and 12% more energy efficient than owner-occupied homes. Social rented housing is the most energy efficiency rating of all property tenures. This may be in part due to the fact that housing associations are held to very high standards as well as many of these dwellings are flats which have better insulation so can be more energy efficient.
With the right glazing, heating, ventilation and insulation measures installed, social homes could be even more efficient.
The ‘potential energy efficiency’ of social rented properties was 78.9 – an EPC rating of C – but many could be a B or an A. Improving energy efficiency, for example, by switching from passive to mechanical ventilation, can reduce the energy bills (householders pay these, not housing associations) reducing costs.Housing Associations have a responsibility for ventilation but are primarily responsible for damp caused by structural defects. They also have a responsibility to regularly check roof insulation and damp proofing.
Anything that results in poor ventilation such as inadequate glazing, heating systems, even a hole in the roof is the landlord’s or housing association’s responsibility.
Housing Associations need to ensure that ventilation works.
The Housing Ombudsman is an independent body that investigates complaints from social housing householders in England, Scotland, and Wales and is a last resort when householders and property owners/housing associations to contact.
There were 1,993 enquiries and complaints from householders about damp, mould and leaks in 2020-21. This figure increased by 77% in 2021-22 to reach 3,530. As of December 2022, they had already received 3,969 enquiries and complaints for 2022-23. The advice to housing associations is:
Listen to your householders. Government data found almost a third (32%) of housing association householders aren’t satisfied with the extent to which their landlord listens to and acts on their complaints.
One in five householders also say they disagree that the housing association or private landlord consults them on decisions that impact their home.
The issue of damp, condensation, heating, insulation and ventilation can be mitigated if the housing association or landlord has a plan for ventilation, communicates it and installs ventilation systems throughout their estate.
Airflow, who consider themselves, as do many parties in the social housing supply chain, as a socially engaged manufacturer of ventilation systems with many insights to offer suggests an option that can work as retrofit: a Mechanical ventilation with heat recovery (MVHR) system.
Historically these have been central systems and therefore are more likely to feature in newly built dwellings due to the ease of installing ducting at the first fix stage. However, now, with the development of technology it’s possible to have a MVHR system that can be retrofitted, like the UNOhab.
This system gives all the advantages of a central MVHR but as ducting is not needed as the units are placed in each room and work with each other it means that existing homes can also have MVHR retrofitted. In the past, other systems have been used in social homes, but as dwellings have become more airtight, the air in these homes have nowhere to go but stay in the home and contribute to the issue of mould.
Central MVHR systems use fans to pull fresh air from the outside through a filter, whilst simultaneously extracting stale air through another vent from ‘wet rooms’ like bathrooms and kitchens. Both the incoming and outgoing air streams pass through a heat exchanger (except in the summer), making incoming air preheated. Centralised systems ventilate a whole building, using a large heat recovery unit.
Single-room MVHR solutions operate similarly to central systems, where the same air comes in over the heat exchanger and goes back out, except the unit only ventilates one room. Single-room MVHR lends itself better to retrofitting.
Landlords can also educate householders on how to properly use installed ventilation systems, as well as on the need to ventilate properly in order to reduce associated risks.
Householders should open windows and use of the ventilation system installed, usually extractor fans.
Proper ventilation is essential for maintaining a healthy, safe and comfortable living environment for householders in social housing. However, Airflow research has found that many householders don’t feel that the issue of ventilation is taken seriously enough by housing associations.
Ventilation in social homes often relies on passive ventilation or old technology not designed for airtight homes that are heavily reliant on external factors and cannot be controlled. Ventilation is one part of the whole home approach to a healthier home and householders feel that housing associations need to the really get the whole conversation about housing and health going with householders through newsletters and Customer Voice.
However we need to understand how hard the housing association sector are working to reach these standards: social housing properties performed better than privately rented properties – a sign that greater education on the risks of poor ventilation is required in relation to all aspects of better homes for everyone.
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