Abstract
Recent incidents in social housing have highlighted the poor living conditions faced by tenants, resulting in fatalities in the UK and increased respiratory illnesses in Ireland. Irish social housing landlords initially responded to complaints regarding issues like mould, dampness, condensation, and cold homes by advising tenants to self-clean with anti-mould paint and suggesting behavioural changes. Despite promises of regenerating some social housing properties, these commitments remain unfulfilled. The government has initiated efforts to upgrade social homes through grants for deep energy retrofit and Net Zero standards for newly built homes. However, the social housing sector faces the challenge of engaging tenants in maintaining a healthy and sustainable home. To address this issue, our research provides a tool in the form of a low-cost, non-intrusive, environmental sensor to monitor indoor air quality and offer customised recommendations to tenants. This sensor is designed to ensure tenant control over their data and easy comprehensibility of the technology. Our project has gathered findings from 28 stakeholders through one-on-one interviews and developed a prototype. The presentation delves into these current findings and provide an overview of the sensor prototype. We aim for this initiative to raise awareness of home sustainability and air quality among social housing tenants, contribute to reducing repair costs and augment property maintenance for the social housing sector, align with Ireland’s sustainability efforts, and offer a solution-oriented approach to inform policy decisions regarding home sustainability in social housing.
Presenters
Tracy Mae IldefonsoPostdoctoral Researcher, School of Law and Government, Dublin City University, Ireland
Details
Presentation Type
Theme
KEYWORDS
Social Housing, Ireland, Tenants, Environmental Sensor, Indoor Air Quality
