Capstone: Building Envelope Diagnostics
Hands-on: diagnose eight envelope call-outs — loft and cavity insulation, air leakage, thermal bridging, solid walls, glazing, solar gain and over-sealing — then calculate, verify and prescribe the fix.
30 min read · Jacob Willis, Net Zero Lead
You've learned how the fabric loses heat, why air leakage matters as much as insulation, how thermal bridges chill surfaces and grow mould, and how glazing and solar gain trade off across the seasons. This capstone walks you round an ageing building as the retrofit assessor — finding the waste, putting numbers on it, and prescribing the right measure in the right order. The thread through every case is fabric first, in sequence: the cheapest, highest-impact measures before the expensive ones — and never a fix that causes the moisture or overheating it doesn't pay for. Some call-outs you'll crack with a quick heat-loss sum; others you reason out from the symptoms.