Volume 4 - Systems, Competence & Insurance Failure

What happens when contaminated buildings are assessed by the wrong people, managed through weak systems and signed off using standards that do not reflect real exposure risk?

In Systems, Competence & Insurance Failure, Jeff Charlton examines how failures in governance, professional competence, remediation practice and insurance decision-making can allow environmental hazards to remain unresolved.

This fourth volume of the Building Forensics Legacy Series brings together decades of field experience in contaminated buildings, disaster recovery, post-loss investigation and building-related illness. It is written for professionals who need a clearer understanding of how poor risk assessment, weak oversight and misplaced certainty can prolong exposure and create further damage.

The book explores why visible cleanliness does not necessarily mean a building is safe. It explains how dust, bedding, soft furnishings, HVAC systems and hidden materials can act as long-term environmental reservoirs, repeatedly releasing contaminants back into occupied spaces.

A major focus is the failure of remediation systems that prioritise speed, cost and cosmetic completion over exposure control. The volume examines how poorly designed works can disturb contaminated materials, spread fragments and toxins, and create an even greater risk during reoccupation.

Inside this volume

• The collapse of competence within contaminated-building investigations
• Environmental reservoirs and the hidden role of dust
• Why bedding, fabrics and HVAC systems can prolong exposure
• CBRN principles and high-risk remediation environments
• The limitations of HEPA filtration, fogging and visual clearance
• PPE, containment and reoccupation failures
• Professional competence and expert-witness scrutiny
• Insurance exposure beyond the original property claim
• Why “industry standard” may not be a sufficient defence
• Symptom mapping and exposure-pathway analysis
• VOCs, CO₂ and chemical-biological interactions
• Actinobacteria, endotoxins and non-mould hazards

The book also challenges the language of buildings being “made safe.” It argues that safety is not a simple pass-or-fail condition and that responsible practice should focus instead on exposure reduction, remaining uncertainty, occupant vulnerability and the likelihood of re-exposure.

For insurers, housing providers and decision-makers, the volume highlights how liability can increase when clearance is treated as proof of safety, when uncertainty is not documented and when occupants are allowed to return without evidence that the relevant exposure pathways have been controlled.

Written for

Housing providers, insurers, local authorities, environmental health officers, remediation contractors, loss adjusters, legal professionals, managing agents, consultants, policymakers and anyone responsible for decisions involving contaminated buildings.