social housing

Luxury Vinyl Tiles, Carpet Tiles and Heterogenous Vinyl floors from IVC Commercial bring comfortable, durable and easy to maintain solutions that are affordable in new build and refurbishment in social housing.

IVC Commercial believes that good design should be easy to implement. For housing associations and affordable housing projects, this means floors that create a welcoming and comfortable home which are also cost-effective, durable and easy to maintain.

A cladding fire detection system that could offer a lifeline to thousands affected by the UK’s cladding crisis is undergoing a critical period of testing with one of the UK’s leading testing bodies, the Fire Protection Association.

Intelliclad, created by Darron Brough and Mohammed Zulfiquar, believe that their sensor, which would be retrofitted to integrate into the cladding system of high-risk buildings, can provide a smarter, faster and more cost efficient method of monitoring fire safety when compared to the controversial Waking Watch.

With the ongoing improvements to building regulations and a focus on insulating homes for greater energy efficiency the need for ventilation can be overlooked.

Adequate ventilation within the home is essential and has been shown to have a positive impact on the health and wellbeing of householders.  During the last 10-15 years the requirement for whole house ventilation and recovery systems has become more prevalent.  As systems developed and designs progressed the need for through wall ventilation products increased.

Whether looking for a replacement lift or new lift for a building project, selecting the right passenger lift for a housing project can be a challenge. Many different factors need to be considered carefully to ensure that the selected lift is right for the building, and the lift specification, despite sometimes a myriad of choice, options and configurations, does not cause long-term headaches for property managers.

Since Grenfell, fire safety in social housing has been in the spotlight. The standard of existing fire safety has been scrutinised and reviewed, with terms such as stay-put policy, EWS1 forms, The Hackitt Report, and ACM cladding all becoming household topics of discussion. Billions of pounds are being spent on Type 4 Fire Risk Assessments (FRA), cladding removal, door replacement programmes and waking watch. Housing groups are now putting more and more pressure on manufacturers and contractors to provide them with the assurance of compliance, with BIM and the Golden Thread becoming the expectation rather than the exception.

The past year has been challenging for everyone, regardless of industry, role or geographical location. However, with challenges can also come opportunities – and, for housing and property managers, the past year has brought in huge changes to ‘standard’ ways of working, as well as new technologies having been implemented to help property management run more smoothly.

It’s perfectly understandable that many people are struggling to feel the Christmas spirit, as yet another year is added to the number of years of failure in housing policy. 2020 will definitely be one for the history books. Of course, the Covid pandemic naturally stole our focus, but in truth, there still exist a myriad of issues afflicting the housing sector that were around before the virus and will continue to make people’s lives difficult going forward if we do not come together as an industry to solve them. Housing Association Magazine’s Joe Bradbury takes a look at what the social housing sector needs in 2021.