believe housing, one of the largest housing associations in the North of England, has successfully implemented GUARDIAN® technology to keep their residents of 136 apartments across the region safe from the water born disease, Legionella.
Plexus Innovation, based in Durham, is the company behind this innovative technology. Their in-house team developed GUARDIAN®, a remote measurement and alert system, which they also manufacture in the UK. Managing Director, Ian Murray, said:
“It is rewarding to see believe housing leading the way by introducing our technology to their industry. Affordable housing providers are now seeing the benefits of using GUARDIAN® to ensure Legionella compliance, provide enhanced duty of care to tenants and reduce operational costs as it tracks and defines water usage and temperature profile of each outlet.”
The believe housing apartments are based in five buildings across County Durham. Compliance Officer for the organisation, Emma Jorgenson says that the system has shown them problems they wouldn’t have even known existed, which has convinced her the data reporting structure is extremely reliable. She said:
“We initially trialed GUARDIAN® on the recommendation of our water services provider, and after successful completion, we decided it was well worth investing in. The buildings we have fitted the technology in house vulnerable people over the age of 55, some who have underlying health conditions so it is our responsibility as landlords to ensure we are doing all we can to protect them.
“The technology was easy to install and the reporting system has been better than using traditional manual measurement. It has been particularly important during coronavirus lockdown, when we haven’t been able to access the properties ourselves, to have remote, digital measurement.
“It reduces the risk of human error and inconvenience to tenants, and clearly detects operational issues, reducing waste, saving money and allowing us to sort them before they are a problem.”
So far GUARDIAN® has alerted believe housing to issues including leaks, boiler problems and also that several tenants weren’t using their cold water taps. When investigated, it emerged that the cold water system had air in it, causing clouding to the cold water. The tenants didn’t trust that it was safe, even though it was fine to drink, but hadn’t reported it.
Chief Executive of believe housing, Bill Fullen, concluded:
“believe housing always puts the safety of our tenants first. Reduction of the risk of legionella is high on Emma and the compliance team’s list. The timing of installing GUARDIAN® meant we had remote and accurate readings that ensured we had uninterrupted management of water compliance throughout the coronavirus lockdown.”
GUARDIAN® is cost effective, reliable, gives accurate measurements and real-time data as well as being easy to install. For more information please contact Plexus Innovation on 0191 922 3969 or visit www.plexus-innovation.com