The levels of damp and mould in West Lothian council homes are to be studied under a new project which will see monitors fitted to a range of houses.
West Lothian is only the third authority in Scotland to introduce the project, which will help it to build a picture of damp problems across its housing stock.
A series of investigations into damp problems was launched last year following news reports of the death of a two year old boy Awaab Ishak as a result of a respiratory condition caused by mould in his home in Greater Manchester.
READ MORE: Urgent call to discuss damp in West Lothian homes delayed ahead of report
In a report to the Housing Services PDSP Marjory Mackie, Housing Strategy and Development Manager said: “The council is also planning to deploy sensor technology into a number of our properties. The sensors will be installed to measure temperature, humidity and CO2, the Environmental Sensors provide actionable insights into conditions such as mould risk, draught risk, excess cold, heat loss and indoor air quality.
“The data will be available to council tenants via a resident’s app and they will be provided with personalised, user friendly data and insight into their home health through an overall rating and handy advice on the measures they can take to improve the quality of their home.
“The council will also be able access information via a dashboard, which will assist the council with a better understanding of any issues and will inform actions including campaigns, staff resource deployment and property investment in a proactive way.”
A pilot group of 100 properties will be fitted with the sensors in the next few weeks, at a cost of £420 per property. The service will develop a monitoring strategy that is aligned to tenants needs and use the data the service holds already to support tenants in improving the quality of their homes.
The council recently completed condition surveys of 431 void properties and 240 pre-war four in a block properties. From the 671 properties surveyed 35 properties, or 5% were regarded as category C or below.
The sample group represents 5% of the stock with those regarded as being category C or below representing 0.2% of the overall housing stock. Defects identified were common across all wards mainly rainwater goods issues, isolated roof repairs, re-pointing and defective windows.
The report added: “It is recognised that increasing legislative standards relating to insulation and energy efficiency of housing stock, in tandem with modern day lifestyles can create challenges relating to air quality and ventilation.
"As such, the council actively engages with tenants regarding matters of dampness or condensation, and in development of the future housing capital investment programme air quality and ventilation measures will be included along with energy efficiency measures including boiler replacements, double glazing and increased insulation.
Labour’s Councillor Andrew McGuire said education would be an important part of developing policies on damp, pointing out that to many people the terms condensation and dampness were interchangeable terms rather than distinctly different.
Councillors agreed to chair George Paul’s suggestion that a working group be set up with Labour, Conservative and SNP members to look at results for the new survey and discuss a way forward.
Council officers suggested this was the first of regular reports on dampness monitoring and more would come to future meetings of the PDSP.
SNP depute group leader Robert De Bold was critical of the fact that his colleague Pauline Stafford had twice been refused debate at full council on actions the council could take over dampness issues. He pointed to Labour support for similar suggestions made in Holyrood this week.
Councillor Paul bridled at the suggestion that Labour was unwilling to take action, and suggested that the lack of finance was one element of the issue, adding: "Perhaps the SNP could go to their government and ask for more funding to commit to the problem.”
Provost Councillor Cathy Muldoon told the meeting that the SNP motion had been submitted to late for the pre-Christmas council meeting and was too close to this meeting to allow for debate because of Standing Orders.
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