NEC Housing partners with Switchee to improve tenants’ lives by identifying damp and mould more quickly
NEC Housing has announced it will partner with Switchee smart devices, to gather valuable property data, making it easier to identify properties requiring attention and take proactive action.
The collaboration will combine NEC’s own information management system, used by over 150 social housing providers, with the real time data and insights collected by a Switchee smart device. This combined data can then be reviewed alongside NEC’s wider dataset covering its properties and residents, enabling potential issues to be robustly analysed and acted upon swiftly.
The Switchee smart device is able to detect changes in air pressure, humidity and temperature thanks to finely tuned algorithms that interpret data and alert providers to properties at high risk from issues such as damp and mould, fuel poverty and other changes that may affect residents. Information is ingested by the smart device and fed back to a dashboard for analysis by the provider and Switchee’s data teams. This insight then facilitates a fully-informed, proactive approach to addressing issues like damp and mould.
Trevor Hampton, director of housing solutions, NEC Software Solutions UK, said: “The potential of our partnership with Switchee is momentous. Being able to feed data into the housing management system enables housing providers to take earlier interventions that have the power to transform the lives of their tenants.”
Tom Robins, Switchee CEO, said: “We believe that giving housing providers the right data at the right time can improve residents’ lives, whether through reduced heating bills, earlier repairs or generally making properties safer to live in. The collaboration with NEC Housing means we can do that more effectively.
“The partnership empowers housing providers to manage their housing stock more efficiently by taking proactive steps before problems escalate. For example, if you can see that a property’s heating is infrequently or, perhaps, never turned on, then you can quickly identify a resident that may be living in fuel poverty. Early interventions can then be made to access support and prevent longer term debt problems and rent arrears.”
This collaboration between NEC Housing and Switchee is indicative of the approach required from the housing sector at large if it is to properly and quickly address prevalent issues around damp and mould and fuel poverty. The ultimate aim being to improve the quality of life for people living in rented homes.
