Winter is a hard time for many, including those social housing tenants who may have to choose between eating or heating their homes and water.
In the latest estimates, around 13% of households in England were classed as fuel poor. That equates to 2.7 million households having to make the decision to use their limited money on things other than heating and hot water, something we should all have a basic access to.
Even those who fully qualify for winter fuel payments will only receive between £100 and £300 so it is important that money goes as far as possible with efficient and cost-effective use of heating and water systems, especially with the current and future expected high costs from suppliers.
GUARDIAN®, an innovative remote measurement technology from Plexus Innovation can help to ensure that every penny spent is maximised. With GUARDIAN® installed, social housing providers can identify those most at risk of fuel poverty and help all tenants cut energy costs; in addition to benefitting from a wide range of other business improvements.
Ian Murray, managing director of Plexus Innovation, the UK company that designs and makes GUARDIAN®, said:
“GUARDIAN® measures and monitors temperature to ensure optimum and safe use of water systems, protecting against risks to health from legionella and scalding. Importantly it can also identify areas of potential fuel poverty risk and enable reduced heating and hot water supply costs by optimising compliant supply. Typically, we see between 5-30% savings generated and you passing these on could be a valuable way of supporting those who will benefit most.
“For your organisation, GUARDIAN® provides many other business benefits:
To help with the journey on the road to Net Zero, energy and water waste plus associated CO2 of monthly manual compliance monitoring is eliminated. Failed or failing assets that otherwise could be missed are identified and highlighted. It also alerts to leaks and taps left running ensuring excess costs, waste and potential damage are negated.”
A hot tap left running for just one hour is enough to full six baths and uses enough power to heat a three-bedroom home for 24 hours. Ian concluded:
“By installing GUARDIAN®, social housing providers could reduce tenants heating bills as well as improving their own business performance across areas including environment, operations and finance. For a caring and conscientious sector, it really is a win-win situation helping tenants have access to more heating for their money and it is a positive move to help combat winter fuel poverty. It’s simply about doing things differently to do them better and helping others.”
In addition to temperature, GUARDIAN® also monitors CO2 and humidity, which enables unhealthy environment and potential for condensation and mould damage to be detected and highlighted.
To join the ever-growing Plexus Innovation forward thinking portfolio of social housing providers or to secure a free demonstration, please contact info@plexus-innovation.com.
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