Managing Housing Stock
Planned Maintenance of housing stock is essential in reducing spending and maintaining high living standards. Brookvent offers residential ventilation servicing and maintenance packages for not only Private Homeowners, but Housing Associations and Property Management Agents. Working together Brookvent assists in collating up-to-date and accurate asset registers with not only annual warranty updates but visual inspection records.
Failing to maintain ventilation systems causes excess moisture build-up in properties, as well as significantly reducing the indoor air quality; this extract concisely summarises how Brookvent can assist the responsibility of landlords, whether private or social, to tenants, “As a landlord, it’s both your legal responsibility and a duty of care to your tenants to make sure your property is free of damp and mould.
To do this properly, you need an expert to diagnose the problem and then, ideally, secure a fix that also has a quality warranty.”
How many houses need managed UK, NI & ROI
In April 2022, the total housing stock in Northern Ireland was 822,083. The private rented sector accounts for around 130,000 to 135,000 households and the NIHE provides 85,000 homes with 20 housing associations that provide around 53,000 homes across Northern Ireland.
Across the UK there are 28.3 million households with 16.6% recorded as social housing stock and an estimated 4.4 million households in the private rental sector housing over 11 million people. In the Republic of Ireland, there were a total of 2,124,590 permanent dwellings during the 2022 census.
Cost of living crisis and fuel poverty
The UK has the oldest housing stock in Europe. One in five homes was built over a century ago, presenting a huge challenge in making them healthy, safe, and energy efficient. Housing associations and local authorities have played a crucial role in upgrading housing insulation and air tightness. Despite these efforts however the cost of living has increased significantly in 2022 and has led to a significant increase in the number of households facing fuel poverty. This occurs when 10% or more of a household income is attributed to energy costs.
Research in Northern Ireland across the private rented sector by the Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence has calculated over 50,000 households pay more than 25% of their income on rent, and as many as 20,000 are paying more than 40%. When this occurs two of the fundamental causes of mould and condensation happen – under ventilation and more homes go unheated. Two elements that cause mould and dampness to thrive.
See our blog on condensation: https://brookvent.co.uk/what-is-condensation/
https://policymogul.com/library-material/821/rising-cost-of-living-in-the-uk
Ventilation
Cleaning and maintaining your ventilation system helps to maintain a healthy indoor air quality and reduces condensation and mould growth.
We would recommend that for MVHR a full service every 1 year with filter changes required every 3-6 months in between dependent on individual environmental requirements.
Filters still need to be changed in PIVs, and all mechanical equipment should be inspected annually to ensure it is providing compliant ventilation.
How Brookvent can manage your stock
In previous blogs we have discussed the benefits of planned maintenance for residential ventilation systems. These include:
- Identifying issues early
- Reducing repair costs
- Enforcing warranties
- Ensuring compliance
- Maintaining high levels of indoor air quality
- Regularly educate the residents on the best practice use
Our award-winning aircycle range is the ideal MVHR system to install and maintain for residential dwellings. Also, our Airplus PIV with running costs as little as £12.80 per annum is the perfect retrofit condensation solution. Nb. Based on the UK October Price cap £0.34/kWh @ 21ls default setting for non-heated models.
Whatever the dwelling type or issue arising Brookvent has a solution. See our blog on Residential Product Selection: https://brookvent.co.uk/residential-ventilation-one-size-doesnt-fit-all-blog/
Technology that we use – Workpal
Crucial to ensuring Brookvent manage our planned and reactive servicing to our customers’ needs has been the implementation of Workpal; a tailored workflow management system.
As a result, we have been able to manage our engineers’ time more efficiently as well as build crucial asset registers and records for our clients.
Reviewing previous attendance, we can prepare the right parts and reduce overall attendance. Year after year attendances go from being largely fact-finding and replacing non maintained equipment to servicing and maintaining effective systems.
See our blog on MVHR Servicing: https://brookvent.co.uk/mechanical-ventilation-heat-recovery-mvhr-servicing-maintenance-package/
See our blog on Residential Ventilation Maintenance: https://brookvent.co.uk/residential-ventilation-maintenance/
We are residential ventilation specialists
Please get in touch to learn more about how Brookvent can help manage your properties, Click and get in touch with Brookvent today! Or call our office on 02890616505 or email, hello@brookvent.co.uk.