#62 - Simon Jones: Healthy Building, On Air, Mouldy Homes and New Laws

Solo episode this week as we catch up on the ISIAQ Healthy Buildings Conference in Hyderabad in India, a new venture for Air Quality Matters and an exploration of indoor air quality intersects with the urgent issues of damp and mould affecting housing today. The importance of recent legislation and proactive measures for healthy living environments takes centre stage.

This week we discuss Healthy Buildings in India and what the podcast is going to be doing from the event.

I discuss the missed opportunity of conferences to drive conversation more Bradley and what Air Quality Matters is doing about it.

And the recent Panorama documentary on mouldy homes, Awabs Law and some great commentary on the hole subject from Rosie Wills of mid Devon Housing

Healthy Building India

On Air 

Rosie Wills - Blog

Rosie Wills - Linkedin

Chapters

• 0:12 Welcome back to Air Quality Matters
• 11:19 Knowledge Sharing: Key to Air Quality Success
• 1:04:39 Unveiling On Air: A New Consultancy Venture
• 12:10:01 Legislative Changes: Awab's Law Explained
• 13:20:36 Controversies Surrounding Damp and Mould
• 23:32:38 Looking Ahead: The Future of Indoor Air Quality

Transcript

Simon: 0:00

Welcome back to Air Quality Matters, and I believe we already have the tools and knowledge we need to make a difference to the quality of the air we breathe in our built environment. The conversations we have and the knowledge we share is the key to our success. I'm Simon Jones and this week it's just me. It's been a while since I did a solo episode and there's been loads going on on the podcast. We've had some brilliant guests, but also quite a bit going on in the Air Quality Matters consultancy. I've been on the road quite a bit and, of course, damp and mould has been back in the news this week. I wanted to talk about the first Healthy Buildings ISIAC event coming from India, something that Air Quality Matters is going to be at and recording some podcasts live from that event, which is very exciting. A new venture for the consultancy called On Air, which I want to tell you a little bit about, and Damp and Mould, something that's been thrust firmly back into the spotlight in this part of the world with the introduction of Awab's Law coming in this autumn and a BBC Panorama documentary which has highlighted the issue. Unfortunately, again, I know we cover this subject quite frequently on the Air Quality Matters podcast and in fact just last week we had Hector from UCL talking about this subject. But I just wanted to touch on a couple of points that's been put into the news since recording that podcast episode. I hope you enjoy it. Don't forget to check out the links in the show notes and on airqualitymattersnet. This is the Air Quality Matters podcast First up, the Healthy Buildings ISIAC event coming live from India on. I think it is the 18th and 21st of August this year. The Air Quality Matters podcast is going to be on site for the week, bringing you the conversations and themes from the event live.

Simon: 2:17

The Healthy Buildings Conference started all the way back in 1989, supported by the CIB, ashrae and the WHO, and has pretty much run every other year since. Since its early success, the International Society for Indoor Air Quality has alternated the Healthy Buildings Conference with Indoor Air. While Indoor Air primarily focuses on scientific research, healthy buildings provide more of a mix of the practitioner-led approaches combined with the science. This attracts not just researchers but practitioners in the space, people in facility management and delivering air quality and ventilation on the ground. Healthy buildings in 2025 will be the first indoor air quality and ventilation on the ground. Healthy Buildings in 2025 will be the first indoor air quality event from ISIAC focused specifically on indoor air quality in India, so it's a very exciting event.

Simon: 3:17

Isiac as a whole promotes global interdisciplinary communication on indoor air quality, the science and climate change in the area of our built environment. It publishes research, organising meetings, conferences and the dissemination of information in this space. The conference in India has a number of themes, but just to name a few, we have indoor environmental quality monitoring and performance metrics. We have sensors and IoT measurement protocols, dashboards and data analytics, advanced room air distribution and ventilation, aerosols, particulate matter, vocs and air cleaning, airborne infection transmission controls and and molds and thermal comfort, and loads more beside. There's a long list and obviously I'll attach the link in the website and show notes below so you can check it out. There's some brilliant keynote speakers, and some that are already live up on the website include chandra sekar from singapore, dusan lasina from switzerland, we've got arthur frank from the states, li lang and yingzhu from china, marcel schweiker from germany, marianne tucci from canada and, of course, a friend of the show, pavel argotsky, from denmark, will also be.

Simon: 4:43

The conference is going to be in Hyderabad and for those that don't know this city, which I don't. I'm really looking forward to going. It is a major metropolitan city known for its history and culture, but also its thriving tech industry. Historically a centre of trade, particularly in diamonds and pearls, apparently it earned the nickname as the city of pearls. In recent years, hydrabad has become a global it and business center and is often referred to as cyberabad, which I think is really funny. But it hosts some of the major multinational companies like Google, amazon, facebook, and has become a real high-tech city. From what I've read, despite rapid modernisation, it's still preserved a lot of its cultural roots. The conference as a whole promises to be an absolute must and, from speaking to the organisers, I think they're really looking forward to putting on a show, not just from the scientific knowledge and learning that we'll gather from this event, looking at some of the regional challenges and solutions that are being presented in India around indoor air quality. I think they're also really looking forward to showcasing the culture and the vibrancy of Hyderabad for visitors that are travelling. So for one, I'm looking forward to going and I highly recommend checking out the links in the show notes to see if it's something you want to travel to as well.

Simon: 6:18

As far as the podcast goes. We've got lots of plans for the week. We've got lots of plans for the week we're going to be there on site. So there's going to be lots of podcasts with really interesting guests for the show. We're going to be doing some talking head interviews with not only keynote speakers but people that are presenting papers students, industry and more besides. So watch this space. On the lead up to the event We'll have more information on our plans, but also some insight into the conference itself. I'd really like to thank the organising committee for bringing the podcast to the conference, particularly the Honorary President, professor Ranga Reddy-Burry, and the President, veena Kumar Sikar, for getting in touch with me and organising for us to come and do so much from the event. I think it's going to be a really interesting week.

Simon: 7:11

Up next, I want to tell you a little bit about On Air, something new we're doing with the Air Quality Matters consultancy. That ties in quite nicely, actually, to what we've just been talking about around the podcast. Coming live from Hyderabad from the Healthy Buildings Conference. One of the things I try to do in my work and through the podcast reasonably successfully, I hope is build a narrative and a frame around this important subject of indoor air quality and health in our built environment, and we build this narrative on a range of subjects, from housing to the science of indoor air quality, filtration, health and well-being, and more besides. There is, believe it or not, with all my ramblings a considered strategy behind this. From the framing and timing of particular conversations to the specific topics within the podcast, all of this creates a machine of content that we use to leverage shorter form content to drive the conversation more broadly. It creates a kind of funnel of dialogue that drives the larger conversation. So what might look like from the outside, a pretty random approach to producing content around indoor air quality and ventilation, is actually a pretty considered and strategic approach, and podcasts that you see are all scheduled to build a narrative over time. Think of it this way between the different platforms and media, there's somewhere between 70 and 100,000 views of this content every single month, all building a narrative over time with a particular purpose, a mission, now, I've been doing this, week in, week out, for years one way or the other, more recently with video and the podcast, but more broadly with social media in general, and it got me thinking about conferences and events.

Simon: 9:21

If you think about it. Huge amounts of time and resources are buried into bringing these events together, only for all of that capital and knowledge and skill on the day to evaporate virtually into nothing within days, buried within let's face it slides and conference papers that nobody's going to read. So I kind of listed them out, not to do events and conferences down. They're very valuable and I think many of us enjoy going to them and I think many of us enjoy going to them. But when you start to think about it, you've got keynotes and speakers often travelling thousands of miles for what is effectively 20, 30 minutes on stage, thousands spent on the venue and the cost of setting the actual event up, insight and knowledge from that event effectively evaporating within days. Conference papers and slides, as I said, that people just don't read. I'll be honest with you A few social media posts, if you're lucky, in and around the event from people attending saying how great it is.

Simon: 10:27

And for the few that were there and think honestly about when you're at these conferences, how much knowledge do you actually retain? Can you remember more than a couple of lines or notations from a particular presentation? So for the few that were there, what value was retained really? So it got me thinking what legacy do these conferences and events actually leave? Do they effectively disseminate information in a way that's fit for 2025? Now, I understand there are very valuable conversations and networking that happens at these events. It's often why I go, but why, if we could 10x this, create a pipeline of conversation that brings the dissemination of these events into 2025? So that's effectively what I'm doing with On Air. I'm going to be bringing a lot of what I've learned over the last few years to a select handful of these events this year, to a select handful of these events this year, bringing the conversation from those events live and online through all the formats that we do, through this podcast, audio, video and social media. Now, believe it or not, we only launched this a few weeks ago and I'm pretty much booked up for the rest of this year, but if you're interested in talking to me about doing something around your event, reach out to me, dm me in LinkedIn. You know where I am and certainly if you want to consider this for 2026, now's a good time to be reaching out.

Simon: 12:10

Now let's talk about damp and mould. There's been a lot going on in this sector in the last few weeks since I recorded my podcast that appeared just before this one with Hector from UCL talking about just this subject mould. In recent weeks the issue of damp and mould, particularly in UK housing, has garnered significant attention, with some legislative movement around Awab's law, some media and documentary series talking about the subject and some pretty good commentary around this subject matter. Because of those two events For those not from the UK the government here has announced the introduction of Awab's law from this autumn onwards. This legislation mandates that landlords react to the issues of damper mould within certain time frames. This was all instigated by the tragic death of a two-year-old boy, awabishak, in Rochdale several years ago. It seemed.

Simon: 13:13

Within a few days of this, we also had a BBC Panorama documentary called Britain's Mouldy Homes. What turned out to be a rather contentious documentary looked at the pervasive issue of damp and mould in UK homes. The programme highlighted the severe risks of living in damp and mouldy homes and the systemic failure of some landlords to deal with the issue. I can tell you the documentary, as these often do, has sparked widespread debate about the requirements of landlords to deal with this problem and the systemic failures in society to manage this. And I think, bringing this all together.

Simon: 13:53

Richard Blakeway, the housing ombudsman, has made some commentary on the new Awabs law that's going to be enforced in September. He says he welcomes these new measures to provide further protection for renters living in hazardous conditions and its extension to private landlords, and he says it is a basic human right to live in a safe and decent home and that this law is an important step towards helping the millions of people who do not, including one million children. When most residents have little choice over their landlord, these measures will give them greater power to challenge poor living conditions and he notes that he's seen some progress two years after the inquest into Awabishak's death and we can see that landlords investing more into repairs, using new technology and changing the culture of housing management. Those landlords should be recognised for the steps they have taken to make homes better in this vital sector. But he says, despite this progress, we still repeatedly find significant and preventable failings in handling potential health hazards in homes. We can find some landlords not taking full responsibility, communicating poorly and making basic errors. Around half our casework still concerns damp and mould. The social housing sector's audit of its housing will also reveal the extent and challenge with the conditions, while some landlords are prepared for this. We can see from our casework that others will face significant challenges. This law should be a catalyst for landlords to get back on top of managing hazards, modernising their repair services and adapting a zero-tolerance culture towards hazards like, in this case, damp and mould.

Simon: 15:58

I think Richard Blakeway there reflects the views of a lot of people outside housing on how this can be such a problem and how housing providers and landlords need to start providing homes that are healthy and fit to live in. But this is a complex problem, as we discussed quite a lot on the podcast and even last week with Hector Rosie Wills from Mid Devon Housing. Someone I follow a lot on social media has provided some really thoughtful and well-considered commentary on the challenges the sector faces at the moment. I think it's a really well-articulated article that captures the complexity and the nuance and the challenges that the sector faces in dealing with damp and mould. She does a great job in this article in highlighting the conflicting narratives that are available and advice around damp and mould, while also emphasising the need for practical solutions. It's a much needed perspective in a debate that often becomes quite binary and blaming in nature. So I'll share the link in the show notes to that article because it's well worth your time to read, to understand quite what people are facing in dealing with this challenge, particularly in the uk but further afield. But to take just a couple of points from her article, she notes the recent panorama documentary on moldy homes, delivered 29 minutes of blame, disagreement and distress, but offered little clarity on responsibility nor any practical solutions.

Simon: 17:36

The programme fixated on the unnamed and unidentified building defects, implying that mould signals a structural flaw, and in doing so risked making tenants feel powerless, potentially driving them towards disrepair solicitors, potentially driving them towards disrepair solicitors. Similarly, homeowners could, as a result, be misled into costly, unnecessary damp proofing treatments or insulation works, possibly even works which might make the issues worse. The reality is more complex. Mould issues are often multifaceted. In many cases, controlling heating ventilation and using appropriate treatments can significantly reduce or resolve problems. However, the confusion is widespread. Even the UK government's own website states, irrespective of the type of damp, landlords are legally responsible for addressing it, creating further misunderstanding. Yet in court, this repair claims frequently fail when mould results from the tenant's failure to use the provided heating ventilation, leaving tenants liable for costly fees.

Simon: 18:51

I'm not going to add to the already overloaded space here. There's already some well-qualified and rounded contributions from the likes of Rosie and Hector, who I had last week on the podcast, and indeed people like the Housing Ombudsman. But I will say this because a couple of things do provide me with some concern around these areas. One is that I think we can learn from experience that when we fixate on the speed of redress, we often start missing the root causes of problems. If we focus on trying to fix damper mould something I think we can all agree is quite a complex thing to fix and concentrate more on the speed of redress, the chances are we're going to push solutions to things that don't necessarily treat the root cause.

Simon: 19:43

While I have you, I just want to borrow your attention for a minute to tell you about Errico, a partner of this podcast. In fact, I worked for Eroco for over 12 years, so I can speak with some authority here. With over 40 years of expertise, aeroco has undoubtedly established itself as a market leader in DCV technology, that's, demand-controlled ventilation. Their mechanical extract systems dynamically adjust airflow rates based on real-time needs, and their NVHR systems further enhance energy savings by recovering heat while delivering fresh, ensuring optimal indoor air quality and energy efficiency. As part of the ALDIS group and based in Paris, france, eriko continues to innovate and set benchmarks for the industry. Their solutions seamlessly integrate into buildings, providing intelligent, efficient and reliable ventilation tailored to the unique demands of each space. With a global footprint, aeroco, as part of the Aldis Group, are a powerful partner in securing good indoor environments and are well worth checking out. Links are in the show notes at airqualitymattersnet and, of course, at aerococouk. Now back to the show.

Simon: 21:27

The other thing we have to be careful of is that damp and mould is only one outcome of poor building performance. Now, it's a visible one, an unsightly one and one that clearly is unhealthy. But many homes that have poor ventilation or poor performance may have no mould at all. And if we've learned anything from this podcast series, the true cost of exposure to air pollutions goes well beyond just our exposure to mold spores and mold vocs. And I see this all the time in documents, particularly in housing, that we start to fixate on damp and mold being the only red flag or trigger that there might be under ventilation or poor air quality in a building. So how many times do we see it on a stock condition survey, for example, that is there a fan Check yes or no, and is there any damp and mould? Check yes and no, as if in any way, there visibly being a fan and no signs of damp and mould is a clear indication of good air quality outcomes. And lastly, I think it's worth remembering that where we see conditions for high levels of condensation and mould, we're very likely to see other pollutants too. The build-up of cooking pollutants, vocs, particulates, nitrogen dioxide and products of combustion all of these indicative of underventilation of the space. Almost certainly mould will keep bad company of combustion all of these indicative of under ventilation of the space. Almost certainly mould will keep bad company.

Simon: 22:59

So as I round off the conversation on damper mould, I just want to make the final point that this is complex and if we don't spend as much time communicating the reality of this situation as we do in rushing to remediate and mould wash damp and mould within 24 hours, the result, I can tell you, will be a slow erosion of trust between tenant and landlord over the next few years as damp and mould repeatedly come back year after year. If we can agree that damp and mould is not something that we're going to eradicate and fix in year one and two, we need to figure out how we can communicate that in a way that builds trust, not erodes it. Mould, like many risks, needs to be seen through the risk lens. Many risks needs to be seen through the risk lens. A mitigatable but sometimes not eliminatable risk in our lives, a risk that some people will have different tolerances to than others and different vulnerabilities and, quite frankly, different priorities. There are people that are fighting bigger battles day to day and month to month than wiping a bit of mould off the wall and we have to recognise that, like all risks, priorities will shift and we need to find a way of capturing this and communicating in a way that legitimises the problem but also provides the agency for people to make decisions about the risks that they face.

Simon: 24:40

I welcome, as I do every time, because, let's face it, we seem to have this conversation every single year. I welcome the conversation and highlighting the issues and challenges with damp and mold, but one of the things we've got to do is get serious about the ventilation performance of the solutions that we provide for homes. It's not good enough to say that we installed a fan and the electrician has switched it on. We've got to move to a place that, when we're providing solutions for people's homes, we can stand over the performance of those solutions, and that's something we also talk about quite a bit here on this podcast and something that I work with very regularly with social housing providers. Thanks, as always, for listening. I do appreciate you spending time with me and do check out the sponsors in the show notes. This podcast was brought to you in partnership with 21 Degrees, errico, aeco, imbiote and Ultra Protect All great companies who share the passion of this podcast and aren't here by accident. Your support of them helps them support this show. Thanks a million and see you again next week.