Heating repair gone wrong!

[scoey1001]

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Hi all,

Looking for some advice please.

Property is a council maisonette. Had 2 radiators stop working in the living room in December. On the council website it states this as an emergency repair 'total or partial loss of heating between October & May - fix time 4 hours'.

To cut a long story short their heating contractor has been to the property 10 times (plus one no show), has broken the boiler 4 times leaving us without heating and hot water for days at a time (it is currently broken again as of last night). They have also told lies, not followed policies etc. a right set of amateurs.

We have made ourselves available for all 10 of these appointments (5 have been all day jobs replacing various parts etc. which seemed to make the problem worse) including using up all out remaining annual leave and been co-operative throughout.

The situation now is they believe there is a kink in the pipe, their solution was to run vertical pipework exposed in the centre of the living room. I said no, and the council agreed.

This means the flooring needs to be taken up, the council say it is down to the tenant (my partner) and will have to then be replaced with carpet as she signed a disclaimer. The disclaimer reads the following;

Name -

Address -

'The following non standard items will remain in situ at the above address:

All flooring
Bathroom mirror
All feature shelving

If any of the above require repair the landlord will only replace with standard fittings.

If any items which are not a statutory legal requirement fall into disrepair the landlord will not be responsible for replacing.'

I am struggling with how to interpret the wording of this disclaimer and where we stand legally.

All comments welcome. Thanks

[jaguarsuk]

Not something I can help you with, but Crazy council may well be able.

[Diana M]

Perhaps it's time to make a formal complaint to the council and if that doesn't get you the resolution you seek then escalate it to the Local Government Ombudsman.

Here is how you can do that > https://www.lgo.org.uk/make-a-complaint

You have the right to heating and hot water so I would also complain to Environmental Health who can put pressure on the Housing Office to sort this.

Shelter explains this here > http://england.shelter.org.uk/housin...iation_repairs

Ten engineer visits and still no positive result is not good!

Di

[Phaeton]

Have a word with your MP especially if he/she is a member of the opposite party who run your council.

[Onestepatatime]

Can I ask, at any point have these two radiators actually worked? If so a kinked pipe is out of the question unless they or you have done it.
Do all other radiators work?
How old is the property roughly, has the heating been upgraded at any time?
Have they given you any indication as to the type of system you have, one pipe or two pipe?
Do you know if you have more than one radiator circuit?
Did you continue to have hot water when these radiators packed up?
is your boiler a combi boiler or standard system with large hot water tank?
What led them to say the boiler was faulty?

personally I'd write to the head of the council, departments tend to bounce it around without any urgency. Quote their own policy to this person, I find that the quickest way to change people is to embarrass their sin, they tend to act quicker.

Do you have young children, elderly people living with you?

By all means follow up with the advice as given by Diana as this is an important record which may bear fruit, they do after all have legal obligations, though ultimately I suspect you just want the heating and hot water restored so normal life can resume.

[scoey1001]

Perhaps it's time to make a formal complaint to the council and if that doesn't get you the resolution you seek then escalate it to the Local Government Ombudsman.

Here is how you can do that > https://www.lgo.org.uk/make-a-complaint

You have the right to heating and hot water so I would also complain to Environmental Health who can put pressure on the Housing Office to sort this.

Shelter explains this here > http://england.shelter.org.uk/housin...iation_repairs

Ten engineer visits and still no positive result is not good!

Di

Hi there,

I have already complained to the council and it is now at stage 2 of their complaints procedure. Once this is completed (response expected within 10 working days) i can escalate to the ombudsman after 8 weeks. This is what i intend to do unless they come up with a suitable resolution.

They came out last night and fixed the boiler (another human error by their engineer!) so the heating and hot water are back on, with the exception of heating in the living room.

[scoey1001]

Can I ask, at any point have these two radiators actually worked? If so a kinked pipe is out of the question unless they or you have done it.
Do all other radiators work?
How old is the property roughly, has the heating been upgraded at any time?
Have they given you any indication as to the type of system you have, one pipe or two pipe?
Do you know if you have more than one radiator circuit?
Did you continue to have hot water when these radiators packed up?
is your boiler a combi boiler or standard system with large hot water tank?
What led them to say the boiler was faulty?

personally I'd write to the head of the council, departments tend to bounce it around without any urgency. Quote their own policy to this person, I find that the quickest way to change people is to embarrass their sin, they tend to act quicker.

Do you have young children, elderly people living with you?

By all means follow up with the advice as given by Diana as this is an important record which may bear fruit, they do after all have legal obligations, though ultimately I suspect you just want the heating and hot water restored so normal life can resume.

Hi thanks for the reply.

- Radiators have worked in the past, it was only during the cold weather when we started using the heating more that we noticed they were not working.

- All other radiators working.

- Property is quite old and i don't know when it was last upgraded (with the exception of the 2 new radiators which still don't work!)

- Sorry not sure on one/two pipe but from what they are saying it is all on the one circuit.

-Yes continued to have hot water

- Combi Boiler

- The boiler was fine until their engineer left the filling loop open which cracked the expansion vessel. Since then it has had various other parts replaced such as PRV, pressure sensor, AAV and expansion vessel. It has broken another 3 times after this which they have fixed the last of these instances last night.

We do have a child who is 12. As its such a big room it was absolutely freezing over December and uncomfortable to use. The weather is not as bad now but its still noticeable.

As above i have complained to the council and the response i got was poor. Whilst they apologised profusely they failed to address and of the failings such as response times, poor workmanship (now 10 engineer visits plus one no show) lies from their contractor etc. etc. so i have now escalated the complaint and it is with a person nominated by the chief executive.

[Onestepatatime]

So after the installation of the two non working rads they initially worked.
Subsequently the gas engineer attended and failed to isolate the filling loop and caused damage to the boiler, negligence for a start.
personally I'd seek the asssitance of a legal professional with a negligence claim?
With a minor in the house I'd have thought that the council are in serious breach of minimum requirements?

it is possible that if the existing original radiators had not been maintained then the sludge that would have built up in the pipes have blocked the valves to the new rads which would have caused them to stop working, however the likely hood of this happening to both at the same time? Most unlikely.
id say that the most likely cause of the rads to stop working would be a combination of sludge and air blockage further back in the system, or possibly too small a boiler, I would like to think that the installer would have calculated the radiator outputs to boiler output prior to installing rads.

[ostell]

If it's both rads in the same downstairs room then it is probably sludge in the pipes. How do I know this? Don't ask !!!

Perhaps all the system needs is a good pressure flush to remove the sludge.

[scoey1001]

Hi thank you both for the replies. To clear up a few things...

- The new radiators have never worked I.e they replaced the old ones but it made no difference

- Not sure if they are in serious breach of anything as other rooms have heating

- On their last visit they used magnaclean and carried out a power flush (no difference hence kink in pipe diagnosis)

Just cant believe its taken 10 visits and all the other crap to get to this stage.

[Onestepatatime]

So now I'm confused? In your post #7 you stated that the radiators have worked in the past? Now you're saying they've never worked?
Either way, if the old radiators worked at some point and nothing other than a replacement of like for like radiators has been done then I'd struggle to understand how this mysterious kinked pipe explanation can be true?

[scoey1001]

Sorry for the confusion. Basically the two radiators in the living room worked last winter. However we noticed this winter they were not heating up at all which is when we reported the issue.

They have tried various things such as adding chemical clean, balancing the valves, two new radiators, New parts on boiler (some of which due to their error), magnaclean, power flush.

basically they have now after 10 visits exhausted all options leading them to say the only thing it could be is a kink in the pipes. However as it is all wood flooring this is where the dispute has started and lead to a standstill.

[scoey1001]

UPDATE :

Hi all, thought i would provide an update on this. The complaint is now with the ombudsman after a total of 14 engineer visits and still no resolution.

The last visit was from an independent auditor who concluded the following - New pipework will need to be run under the laminate floor due to a combination of the following;

1. The current pipework installed by the landlord is of insufficient size (needs upgrading from 15mm to 22mm)
2. There is a blockage/kink in the pipework somewhere that needs to be bypassed by running new pipework (as the powerflush was unsuccessful).

The sticking point is the landlord is still saying it is down to us to replace the laminate with carpet (see disclaimer above). Which i dispute as i believe it falls outside of the wording of the disclaimer. But i am having trouble convincing them of this.

Please can anyone offer advice? Thanks

[Onestepatatime]

To be honest you can lift laminate flooring quite easily if it is the click together stuff. Around the edges does it go under the skirting boards or does it have a trim piece around bottom of skirting? If the latter then there should be a 10mm gap between edge of laminate and skirting, this is sufficient to lift laminate with very minimal damage. It may be less hassle to lift the laminate and put it back down again yourself. Just remember to number each piece on the back as you lift it, then translate this to a sketch of the room on a piece of paper, will ensure you put it back as it came up.