The House Achieved Its Energy Rating, but the Client Says It’s Uncomfortable. What Do I Check First?
$99.00 GST
The call comes about eighteen months after handover. The house was supposed to be seven and a half stars, the living room is freezing every evening, and the instinct is to defend the number. That answers a complaint about how a room feels with a document about a model, and the client hears it as a refusal to look.
This one hour CPD course is for building designers, residential drafters, practice principals, renovation and extension designers and building consultants. Four short modules, two case studies and a ten question quiz, with your certificate saved to your dashboard.
Description
By the end of this course, you will be able to explain what a star rating models and what it does not promise, analyse whether the house as built matches the house that was modelled, differentiate the six factors of thermal comfort and identify which one is failing, and apply a diagnostic sequence and a cost-ordered set of remedies. The organising idea is that the complaint is nearly always real even when the rating is sound, because a rating is a modelled comparison under standard assumptions, averaged across the whole dwelling, and the scheme itself says it is not a prediction of a household’s energy use. The first module covers those assumptions: occupancy, internal heat loads, thermostat settings that are standard for the climate zone, and the window and blind operation the software assumes, which a household that keeps the house shut is not doing. The second module checks the build against the model: insulation continuity and compression, air leakage and the seals nobody fitted, substitutions nobody reported, shading that was never built, and services that breach the envelope. The third module separates the six comfort factors, with radiant asymmetry at cold glass and hot ceilings, draughts and stratification, and humidity and mould as the usual culprits. The last module runs the diagnostic visit: interview before you measure, what to measure and with what, when to bring in the assessor or a specialist, remedies in cost order, and how to manage the conversation and your own position. Two case studies and ten practice scenarios close it out.
This CPD provides general guidance on diagnosing comfort complaints in rated houses. It is not legal advice, and it does not replace an accredited energy assessor, a mechanical designer, a building surveyor or certifier, or the advice of your own insurer if a complaint becomes a claim.
