Six-weekly inspections vs always-on evidence

The six-weekly inspection is the default way most social landlords check for damp and mould.

It answers one question — what the room looked like that morning.

What the inspection misses

A room can read fine on the day and grow mould the week after. The visit is a single frame; the conditions move every hour. Everything between visits is invisible.

• The overnight dew-point spikes, gone by the time anyone arrives.
• The home the tenant never reported.
• The slow drift, too gradual to notice frame to frame.
• The weeks of exposure that built up before the visit was due.

What always-on adds

A sensor reads every few minutes and never misses a night. Humidity, temperature, dew point and mould risk per dwelling become a daily picture instead of a six-weekly one. The gap between visits closes, and so does the gap in the evidence.

Not either-or

Inspections still matter. Someone has to confirm a hazard in person and carry out the work. What changes is what sends them: instead of a fixed rota, the data points to the homes that need a visit first. The walk-round stops being how you find problems and becomes how you confirm them.

The point

A rota inspects the calendar. Continuous monitoring watches the building. Keep the visit for what it is good at — confirmation and repair — and let the data decide where it goes.