Housing Sensors in York

Sensors to be used in council houses in York to monitor problems, including faulty boilers, damp and fuel poverty.

13:29 05 September 2018

The City of York is set to become one of the first local authorities to monitor social housing using sensors. The technology, which is provided by company Pinacl Solutions, will be used to monitor humidity, carbon dioxide levels, temperature and movement on an hourly basis with the goal to improve tenants’ health while cutting maintenance bills.

 

Each home will be installed four sensors, one for the living room, kitchen, bathroom and bedroom. Social housing providers can then do the monitoring through an app dashboard.

 

Simon Donnelly, digital manager at the council, said: “By generating city-scale intelligence across many of our key assets, it will enable us to realise significant efficiencies through early intervention and more targeted resourcing, in turn creating better outcomes for our customers.

 

“Given our commitment to help create a truly Smart City – built on York’s world-class infrastructure – Pinacl’s solution immediately caught our eye as a hugely scalable yet relatively low-cost way to really deliver on the enormous potential of Internet of Things."

 

Mark Lowe, Pinacl’s business development director added: “Social housing providers are responsible for managing tens of thousands of properties, often with extremely small teams.

 

“It costs in the region of £25,000 to fully refit the average social housing property, a cost that our technology helps to avoid.

 

 

 

"We know from our research that around one in ten properties have an urgent need of intervention which would require renovation running into tens of thousands of pounds if not detected early on and acted upon.”