diff --git a/local/recipes/system/thermald/source/src/main.rs b/local/recipes/system/thermald/source/src/main.rs
index 0b9791175f..f8808fbecc 100644
--- a/local/recipes/system/thermald/source/src/main.rs
+++ b/local/recipes/system/thermald/source/src/main.rs
@@ -531,24 +531,11 @@ fn update_policy(shared: &Arc<RwLock<ThermalState>>) {
 }
 
 fn monitor_loop(shared: Arc<RwLock<ThermalState>>) -> ! {
-    let mut warned_missing_surface = false;
-
+    // The surface-existence check happens once at startup in
+    // discover_zone_dirs. Re-checking it every poll iteration is
+    // redundant: if it vanished, the next update_policy call will
+    // see the empty state and re-render the TUI accordingly.
     loop {
-        // is_dir() / exists() use stat/lstat which return errors on
-        // Redox schemes; read_dir is the only reliable existence probe.
-        let surface_available = fs::read_dir(ACPI_THERMAL_ROOT).is_ok();
-        if !surface_available {
-            if !warned_missing_surface {
-                warn!(
-                    "{} is unavailable; thermald will keep polling and serve an empty thermal surface",
-                    ACPI_THERMAL_ROOT,
-                );
-                warned_missing_surface = true;
-            }
-        } else {
-            warned_missing_surface = false;
-        }
-
         update_policy(&shared);
         thread::sleep(THERMAL_POLL_INTERVAL);
     }