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Housing associations, local authorities and developers are tasked with ensuring their homes aren’t detrimental to their residents’ health. But retrofitting older homes isn’t without its challenges, says Jill Starley-Grainger.
Ensuring the safety of rental properties has long been a priority for landlords but, more recently, a focus on healthy homes has come to the fore. A variety of issues have led to increased awareness of the need for healthier homes, including climate change causing extreme fluctuations in indoor temperatures and moisture levels, higher energy bills affecting indoor air quality and evidence of the detrimental impact of air pollution and moulds.
The government’s Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS) provides guidelines for what constitutes a healthy home, which has typically been used as the checklist for most builders, local authorities and housing associations.
The HHSRS covers a range of issues, including interior air quality, light, space, noise, pests and damp, but the guidance is now nearly two decades old. Much has changed in the intervening years, which is why a new Healthy Housing bill is currently making its way through the House of Lords and is likely to be moved onto the House of Commons. If it becomes law, it will see significantly higher responsibility for landlords, including the right to minimum living space, light, clean interior air, noise protection and year-round thermal comfort.
The problem for many landlords, including social landlords, is that many UK homes do not meet the current standards, let alone future ones. This is primarily due to the fact that properties often pre-date HHSRS, which means retrofitting – a process that can be very expensive.
Getting started with healthy homes
With budgets tight, where should you start when trying to ensure healthy homes for your residents?
“Many of the issues that cause problems in homes, such as mould or cold rooms, are interlinked, so you really need to look at the whole picture,” says Paul Ciniglio, Head of Whole Home Retrofit at the National Energy Foundation. “The first areas to investigate are often the home’s heating, ventilation and insulation. If these aren’t adequate, then anything else you do to address moulds and poor indoor air quality will not work in the long-term.”
But in some cases, instead of tackling these fundamental issues, some landlords have asked tenants to stop drying their clothes in the bathroom, for example, or to open windows.
“It’s no good blaming tenants for these problems. Homes need to be fit for modern living, and that includes the ability to dry clothes indoors and to keep warm in winter,” says Paul.
Tenants in social housing that have tumble dryers may well be worried about their running costs. It might not be possible to dry clothes outside, with unpredictable weather and the risk of theft. And even when homes have a garden or balcony, local rules can sometimes forbid external clothes lines.
External pollution can also be a key factor, so while opening windows can air out a flat, for tenants who live on busy roads, it can also bring in pollution, causing an additional health risk and unwanted noise.
The right ventilation system can help resolve both of these problems. James Major, co-founder and CEO at Hubb Pro, a platform to help design and decarbonise new-build homes, has found that Mechanical Ventilation with Heat Recovery (MVHR) systems can be a good solution to help improve indoor air quality and reduce moisture levels while also keeping homes warm. “MVHRs work by pulling the stale air out of a room – or the home, if a whole-home system is installed – and piping in fresh air that runs over a heat exchanger. This warms the fresh air before it enters the home so that you don’t get freezing cold air blowing in.” In summer, many systems have a mode that stop the heat exchanger, so it just pulls stale air out and brings fresh air in.
To find out the quality of air in your housing stock, James suggests the use of an air quality sensor, such as Airthings, which monitors radon, PM2.5, CO2, humidity, temperature, Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) and air pressure.
“VOCs can have a significant impact on indoor air quality and these can be easily minimised when retrofitting or in new builds by opting for low- or no-VOC paints, flooring and furnishings,” says James. The off-gassing of VOCs can last for six months from paints and up to five years for carpets so while lower VOC options can sometimes be slightly more expensive in the short-term, they can make a big difference to indoor air quality for years.
James also spoke on elemental’s recent healthy homes webinar, which you can watch on demand here: crowdcast.io/e/the-essentials-for
Noise is another crucial area when considering healthy homes. Research by Town and Country Planning Association found that, “Noise is the second largest environmental cause of ill health after air pollution”. Whether it’s traffic noise, construction or simply badly insulated interior walls, many tenants’ lives could be significantly improved by addressing this, which could involve installing double- or triple-glazed windows, adding better insulation to all walls – internal and external – as well as roofs.
Of course, providing better insulation can also help with indoor air quality, if combined with proper ventilation, so while comprehensive insulation can sometimes be expensive to retrofit, it’s usually a win-win in the long-term.
