Hcond - condition survey software

2 Principles of Hcond

Introduction

Hcond was developed by the University of the West of England and was originally funded by a Housing Corporation Innovation and Good Practice Grant. Hcond is not designed to record detailed data; it is designed to record the current and future costs of building elements, each cost assigned to a particular period or year. It can also record details of attributes and fittings etc. Examples of both these are shown below.

	There are two data entry boxes in Hcond. The first contains the codes and descriptions of each element. The number of elements and their descriptions is set up in the Hcond3.cfg file. A typical file (used by a number of UK associations) is included in the download section. The data entry box is similar to a card index system. using the controls at the bottom of the box you can move forward or backward through the database or jump to a particular record. This part of the program also lets you add or delete records.
	A second data entry box contains the attribute data. Attributes do not have a cost or year allocated to them because they are a record of facilities etc. Information can be stored on up to 30 attributes. More information can be found in the Guide to Hcond.
	Hcond can be searched easily using a few simple commands to provide a wide range of information about the stock. This could be long term financial forecasts to aid strategic planning, or, at a more operational level, a list of properties which may require new kitchen units, for example, over the next one, two, or more years. It can also provide details showing which properties contain particular attributes. Hcond can also be used to record information on Decent Homes (including the new HHSRS elements).

Hcond uses a paper survey form. A pdf of the survey form can be downloaded by clicking here. A spreadsheet version (ready for editing) is in the download section. A pdf of the survey form for Decent Homes can be downloaded by clicking here. Again, a spreadsheet version (ready for editing) is in the download section. We have kept these two forms separate although the data is contained in the same database.

Hcond will work on a single machine or on a network. The reports are easy to produce and can be exported to spreadsheets for further manipulation and analysis. A later section shows a number of screen grabs.