As a society we’ve never been more aware of the need for healthy buildings to live and work in. Ahead of elemental’s webinar on this topic – taking place on 24th February – Lucy Dixon spoke to Aico’s Chris Jones about how its HomeLINK platform can simplify tracking, analysing and acting on issues impacting the health of buildings for both owners and occupiers.
Research from Shelter in October 2021 found that “the health of one in five renters (22%) in England – or 1.9 million households – is being harmed by poor housing”, with damp and mould found to affect 23% of tenants. As the charity’s chief executive, Polly Neate said: “Listening to the calls flooding into our helpline there is no doubt that health and housing go hand in hand.”
So it’s not surprising that a growing number of local authorities and housing associations are turning to technology to help provide healthy buildings for their tenants – in residential buildings but also in schools and workplaces – and to help deal with issues including damp and mould and poor air quality.
HomeLINK is a system that integrates sensors with an analytics portal allowing social housing landlords (and tenants) to easily monitor various metrics within their properties, which can have a huge impact on health.
One side of this is making sure the smoke and CO detectors are functioning properly, giving peace of mind to both the resident and the landlord and, crucially, alerting them of any issues. HomeLINK’s CEO Chris Jones explains: “Carbon monoxide can kill people, but it can also cause problems at a lower level. People live with it because they don’t realise, and it has quite big mental health and physical health implications.”
Information gathering
Aside from the obvious importance of these life-saving sensors, the system can also monitor other environmental factors including temperature, humidity and carbon dioxide levels.
Jones says: “We take that information, put it in the cloud, analyse it all to create a number of different insights from the energy efficiency of homes and their air quality to how well ventilated they are and whether there’s damp and mould issues.” The system goes further than simply identifying these issues, too, it also offers guidance on what the underlying causes could be and what can be done about, says Jones. “This is a kind of ‘Fitbit’ for your home, giving information about how to keep the home healthy which ultimately means keeping yourself and your family healthy.”
This level of information about residents’ lives might sound intrusive to some, but HomeLINK has carried out extensive ethics research about the information collected, as Jones explains: “Both the landlord and tenant get access to the same information, and we’ve made sure the tenant is prioritised – we’ve interviewed thousands of tenants and been very careful on what sensors we use and what insights we create based on that feedback. And that’s also why we have the residents’ app, which is free cutting-edge technology that people can’t just buy online, with insights relevant to the residents’ health, for example around issues such as allergen risk.”
Jones explains that the system can make predictions on really important issues for anyone with certain health conditions such as asthma. He says: “One of the major causes of allergens in the home is dust mites, which only thrive at a certain humidity band. So we know that if the conditions are within this band, then your chances of having asthma or severe asthma are massively increased. And people won’t be aware, they’ll think they’re just having good days and bad days, without knowing why, but with the app they can see the reasons.”
Changing behaviour
And in the same way that a health tracker you wear on your wrist works, the HomeLINK insights can also trigger the behavioural change that comes from awareness, as it will suggest actions that can help to rectify any issues. Jones says: “Depending on the issue identified, advice could be something as simple as turning the temperature up in the home by two degrees. It can be quite small actions that have quite a big impact on healthiness.”
The shift in recent years to making buildings more energy efficient has also had an impact on the health of buildings, with some measures having poorer indoor air quality as an unintended side-effect. Jones explains: “They’re very airtight because you don’t want to lose heat. And if they’re not well ventilated, or the ventilation isn’t used properly, then the habits that would have been fine in a draughty house can become a problem. Simply put, if you don’t carefully manage your environment, you can get quite ill.”
From the landlord’s or property owner’s point of view, the HomeLINK system is simple to install, and can be done quickly as part of a smoke alarm upgrade project, or similar, while an electrician is already there as part of a programme of works. The sensors are battery powered, with a minimum 10-year life, and can provide information about the housing stock that can save money, as well as improving health for local communities.
Creating and maintaining Healthy Buildings: from inception to completion and beyond
To hear more about healthy buildings from Chris Jones and fellow panellists Edward Murphy, Ollio Consult; and Oliver Heath, Heath Design, sign up for our free webinar on 24th February.
In this session, the panel will discuss how to create and maintain healthy buildings from inception to completion and beyond, considering:
- What defines a healthy building and in what ways can buildings impact health?
- How can property owners ensure the health of their buildings, year after year?
- How important is the implementation of smart technology to achieve health building status?
