OVK passed with remarks — how to remedy the defects

An OVK remark is a deficiency the ventilation inspector has noted in the report. It must be remedied by the building's owner, whether or not the report otherwise passed. If the report is not passed, a new inspection is additionally required once the deficiencies are remedied. There is, however, no general statutory deadline for how quickly a remark must be addressed — one of the things that makes remarks easy to postpone.

Who remedies what

Situation	Who is responsible
Defect in the building's ventilation system (unit, ducts, terminals, controls)	The building's owner
Blocked or covered terminals in a flat	The owner remedies, but needs access and often the tenant's co-operation
The tenant's own installation, for example a cooker hood connected into the system	The owner answers to the authority and must pursue the matter with the tenant
Defect in premises a business has altered	The owner towards the authority; otherwise governed between the parties in the lease

The point is the same in every row: towards the building committee it is always the owner who answers. Who ultimately pays is a contractual matter between you, and that question must never become the reason the defect remains.

How quickly must it happen?

There is no provision saying "within 30 days". In practice the deadline is set in one of three ways:

1. The inspector states a time in the report by which the deficiencies should be remedied.
2. The building committee issues an order and sets a deadline in the decision. Such an order may be coupled with a financial penalty.
3. You set it yourself — the only one of the three that gives you control over the cost and the sequence.

A remark left standing until the next ordinary inspection three or six years later is in practice a defect you have chosen to keep. If supervision follows, that is the assessment made. See what happens when OVK is not carried out.

How long do you have to remedy an OVK remark?

There is no general statutory deadline. If the report is not passed, the deficiencies must be remedied and a new inspection carried out — but the date is set by the inspector's instruction, by the building committee's order if one comes, or by you. Reasonable practice is to give every remark an owner and a date in the same week the report arrives, and to prioritise anything affecting air flows in dwellings. If you wait for an authority to set the deadline, you have already lost the initiative.

Common remarks, in the order worth tackling them

• Low air flows in dwellings — directly affects the indoor environment and is what most often leads to complaints and supervision.
• Blocked or removed terminals — cheap to fix, visible immediately at the next measurement.
• Poor balancing after alterations — common where a stairwell has been renovated or premises rebuilt.
• Missing or incomplete operating and maintenance instructions.
• Defects in units, filters and heat exchangers — planned into the operating budget rather than treated as urgent.

The list is ordered by impact on residents, not by cost. It is the order a supervisory authority asks about.

When is a re-inspection required?

On a not passed report a new inspection must be carried out once the deficiencies are remedied. On passed with remarks no re-inspection is normally required — but the remark must still be handled, and it will appear in the next report if it has not been. What the words mean exactly is in how to read an OVK report.

Keep remarks and intervals in the same view

Remarks and the next inspection date come from the same document but usually end up in two different systems: the date in a calendar, the remarks in an email or a binder. That is why the defects survive to the next inspection.

In Emphyx both are read out of the report on upload and land on the building — the remarks as action items, the date as a tracked deadline. See OVK in Emphyx. With only a few buildings a shared list does the same thing; it is portfolio size that decides, not technology.

If you live in a housing co-operative the split of responsibility is partly different — described in OVK in a housing co-operative.