Is the house healthy? Now you can prove it — room by room, on site, in minutes.
A Guide to a Healthy House in Kenya: The Companion Field Guide is the take-it-to-site handbook to Arch. Emmanuel S. Milikau's healthy-home framework. Where the main book explains why a home makes its occupants well or unwell, this field guide gives you the what and the how — in a format built for inspections, client walk-throughs, and design reviews.
Everything is organised around the Five Health Pillars — Air, Light, Water, Warmth, and Sound — plus dedicated sections on kitchens and bathrooms, vulnerable occupants (children, the elderly, pregnancy, and disability), and biophilia and mental health. Each section gives you:
• Quick-reference cards with the exact numbers, thresholds, and action levels • Inspection checklists for walking through a building • Score cards that turn a subjective impression into a defensible rating • Measurement logs for humidity, temperature, noise, and lux readings • Standards tables drawn from KEBS, WHO, the Kenya Building Code, and international best practice • Common-defects cards for spotting the problems you see most often
It closes with a Master Assessment Tool — a complete Healthy House Score Card that produces a single, percentage-based building rating — and a consolidated Standards Reference for fast regulatory checks.
Grounded entirely in Kenyan conditions — local climate zones, materials, construction methods, and real health risks from damp and mould to charcoal smoke and Rift Valley radon — this is the rare housing reference written for the East African context rather than imported wholesale from abroad.
Written for architects, builders and contractors, home inspectors, property managers, surveyors, public-health and housing officers — and any homeowner who wants to know, with confidence, whether their home is helping or harming the people inside it.
Carry it to every site visit. Use a pencil; reuse the forms. Make "healthy" something you can measure.
Arch. Emmanuel S. Milikau (B.Arch., M.Arch., MAAK(A), Reg. Arch.) is a registered Kenyan architect and principal of Emacs CAD Solutions Ltd, Nairobi.