COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

MEETING OF LUCAN / PALMERSTOWN / NORTH CLONDALKIN AREA COMMITTEE

Tuesday, November 22, 2022

QUESTION NO. 13

QUESTION: Councillor Shane Moynihan

To ask the Chief Executive for the amount of time being taken to address Housing Maintenance Requests, by category, including dealing with ventilation and mould issues.

REPLY:

The Council categorises all requests for repairs depending on the nature of the problem. These categories are emergency, urgent, routine or cyclical. We try to respond to requests for repairs according to the guidelines below:

CATEGORY	TIMESCALE	EXAMPLE
Emergency	1 – 5 working days	Smoking Fuse Board, Burst water tank
Urgent	10 working days	Leak under sink unit, Leaking roof
Routine	12 weeks +	Replace toilet cistern, Faulty radiator
Cyclical	1 – 7 years	Leaking gutters, replacement hall door etc.

To date this year in the Lucan/Palmerstown/Fonthill electoral areas,1501 work orders have been completed as detailed in the table below:

Category	No. of Work Orders Complete	Average No. of Days
Electrical	221	10.41
Mechanical	700	2.41
Plumbing	561	44.42
Miscellaneous	19	36.26

Dampness and mould in a property are related to temperature and humidity of the immediate environment. Due to the nature of our climate and the way we live, most homes would have some element of dampness and mould that requires interaction of the homeowner to help ventilate, clean and prevent build up over time. The vast majority of damp and mould issues reported are preventable with the positive interaction of the tenant.

In severe cases of damp and mould related to construction issues, the Housing Maintenance Section are currently trialling Centralised Mechanical Extract Ventilation in a number of properties.  This form of ventilation provides a constant controlled circulation of air within the property, to help improve air circulation thereby reducing moisture levels.  Once the initial trials have been completed, our maintenance section will assess the suitability of the solution to roll out to other similar property types experiencing similar issues.

It should also be noted planned maintenance programmes, such as the Energy Efficiency Retrofit Program and the Accelerated Windows and Doors replacement programme, will also have a positive impact on the control of damp and mould in properties.

In addition, the Council has recently held a recruitment competition for the position of plumber and we have four new plumbing staff who are due to take up duty by the end of the year, this should substantially reduce our average response times for plumbing requests.