Excess cold

Excess cold covers a property’s inability to maintain an appropriate internal temperature — heating provision, insulation and thermal discomfort. It is a Phase 2 Awaab’s Law hazard: capturable in full today, with its statutory clock not yet commenced.

What it is

The GOV.UK guidance frames excess cold around whether a property can be adequately heated and kept at a safe temperature, and around vulnerable occupants — those 65 and over, under 5, immunocompromised, mobility-limited or with chronic health conditions are specifically named as raising the stakes.

The Heating & Insulation section reuses the same room-by-room, psychrometric and condensation engines as damp & mould, plus its own heating-specific record: heating type and adequacy, insulation across loft/walls/floor, thermal-bridging observations, achieved living-room and bedroom temperatures, and a free-text vulnerable-occupant cold-risk note.

How to do it

1. Complete the shared sections (details, rooms, psychrometrics, condensation) as you would for any hazard type.
2. On the Heating & Insulation card, record the heating type (or describe it if “other”), your own adequacy judgement, insulation notes for loft/walls/floor, and whether thermal bridging was observed.
3. Record any achieved living-room or bedroom temperature readings taken on-site.
4. Complete Hazard Triage — the heating-adequacy judgement itself is always yours; nothing on this card is computed or defaulted for you.

How it integrates

Excess cold has its own AI preset (housing-excess-cold): an image-analysis button restates only what is visible in a photo — a heating appliance or control, a defect or disrepair, an insulation deficiency, a draught, a glazing defect, a thermal-bridging indication, or that a temperature reading was recorded — never a pass/fail verdict on heating adequacy, which stays your own on-site judgement. The executive-summary draft is grounded in this hazard’s own recorded fields. Because Phase 2 has not commenced, the finalised record carries a “capturable now, clock pending” note rather than a live deadline, unless the case is judged an emergency — see Phase 2: capturing before it commences.

Common problems

• There’s no due date on this job. Expected while Phase 2 remains unconfirmed — an emergency-severity case is the one exception, already covered by Phase 1 today.
• The heating-adequacy field feels like it should be calculated. It isn’t — it’s deliberately your own on-site judgement, never inferred from a reading or a photo.
• Excess cold isn’t offered when raising a survey. Check Settings → App configuration → Hazards — it may have been switched off for your organisation.