One Vision Housing

The installation of simple but effective new timer device for domestic heating systems could save lives in Sefton – according to One Vision Housing.

The housing association is installing an innovative new timer device from Honeywell, which can remind tenants when an annual gas service is required; restrict the heating to manual control only, or disable the heating completely.

If a safety inspection does not take place in the property within a 12 month period an alarm is activated and will continue to sound intermittently until it reaches a set cut off point when the central heating will de-activate altogether. The central heating will not then re-activate until a gas safety check has taken place on the property.

One Vision Housing has invested heavily in its gas servicing drive over the last 12 months which has resulted in the excellent return of only 33 no accesses out of a total of 11,300 homes – or 0.35% of its stock.

Although these results are amongst the very best in the country, One Vision Housing believe that the Honeywell device will cut further the instances of cases where tenants refuse to allow engineers access to their property, thereby putting their own, their families and their neighbours’ lives at risk from Carbon Monoxide (CO) poisoning.

You can't see it, taste it or smell it but CO can kill quickly without warning.

To ensure access is granted One Vision Housing has initiated legal action against almost 100 tenants within the past year and sees the Honeywell ST9100S as the ideal solution to solve the problem before legal action is required.

One Vision Housing is installing the system in all its properties with boilers over 15 years old as part of its wider Decent Homes programme, which will see thousands of new central heating systems installed across the borough before 2010.

The work is being carried out by OVH lead contractor Connaught and sub contractor Curtis Electrical.

One of the first tenants to have the system installed was David Wardley from Seaforth, who said: “I am very happy to be one of the first OVH tenants to have this system installed as it will mean greater piece of mind for my partner and I.”

Andrew Spencer, one Vision Housing Director of Investment and Regeneration said: “We have a duty to undertake regular maintenance checks of the gas and heating systems in all of our properties, however not all out tenants co-operate to allow us to carry these out.

“The Honeywell product will allow us the flexibility to provide regular warnings to residents that they require service checks, and even in extreme cases to shut off the heating completely if a service has not been undertaken within a set period. This will force those tenants who have continually refused us access to do so without the need to refer the matter to the courts –which would ultimately bring great expense to the tenant in question.”

For further details, or to arrange an appointment call 0845 140 1234.