To think the council should fix this?

[beetty]

My front door and the frame don't join together properly so it's absolutely freezing in my house.
The drafts are so bad.
They have been out today and say nothing they can do.
Can I have your opinion?
Or advice what I can do please?
It's so cold

Weather bars? Cheap and effective. Ours have made a great difference to the draught. If there was no gap at all the door would be stuck and you'd be complaining about that.

1. Get a thermometer. Record the temperature in the living areas of your house (ie not right by the door) every day over a couple of weeks. If it's really low, write to/email your housing officer, cc your least right wing local councillor, pointing out the terrible EPC rating, and ask them to look into what can be done. This will be far harder for them to ignore than repeated requests to fix the door which they've already said they can't do.

1. You've probably already done this but make sure the pre pay meter is in your name so you're not paying off any of the last tenant's debts. Also look into whether you can get it changed to a normal meter and pay direct debit, as that will make a massive difference to the cost.

1. This is going to sound mad but I grew up in a house with poorly fitting doors and my mum used to go round every night and stick masking tape over the gaps (and a bit over the keyhole) . Bizarrely it did actually work! No you shouldn't have to resort to this but it might help keep you warmer in the meantime.

To answer your original question no YANBU to expect your landlord to keep your home in good repair. That's supposed to be the benefit of renting. The fact that your landlord is the council doesn't take away from that.

Yes the boiler should be replaced if it doesn’t work properly, but in the interim you can reduce the cold by using the insultation tape suggested (they sell it in Wilko or any diy shop) and stick up a curtain. Or a blanket in a pinch. Thick curtains or blankets will also keep in the window heat. Stick a wanted post on freegle or a Facebook free site if you can’t afford new curtains.

In council housing, if you want non essential work done, you need to pay for it. It's secure in accommodation terms as owning your home and the best option for people who can't afford to own.

I'm in an owned flat, there is so much that needs doing to bring it up to standard. It isn't getting don't because I can't afford it. I just live with it and make do.

But the boiler clearly does work and is safe otherwise it would be changed. So it’s non essential
The council might be filled with red tape, but they do the essential to have safe housing.

I mean when people say 'wear 2 jumpers, a dressing gown, three vests, bed socks and sit with quilts over you' which people posit as normal only on MN.

We live in a drafty period house and I do wear 2 pairs of leggings, 2 jumpers and a thermal underlayer, and I do have a blanket on top of me when I'm on the sofa.

This is sort of normal for the women I know who live in similar houses (because men don't seem to feel the cold as much) - they're really not built for warmth.

I thought wooden doors had to have a gap all around for expansion..

I grew up in council house , as nearly every PP has said, draught excluder tape is your friend

My first house , dodgy windows with gaps, a roll of the tape for a fiver and I was sorted.

Sick of being freezing and wasting money
Ok then if that makes me "strange"

What makes you strange is that you would rather sit in the cold and waste quite a lot of money on heating than spend a couple of pounds on draft excluder which would remedy that.

Your problem is the windows and possibly boiler, do you shut your curtains across the windows to keep the warmth in, if radiators are under windows make sure you tuck the curtain down the back of them

I had a drafty front door in my old student house, we used draught excluder tape, put a door brush on the bottom of the door, and put a thick curtain up in front of it. Cost about £20 in total and meant the house was nice and cosy and cheaper to heat.

I love in a new build, door has gaps can feel a draft so we put up a curtain. It makes a massive difference to keeping the heat in. Till the council comes & looks stick up a bed sheet over the door to keep the heat just as a temporary solution if you don't want to buy a curtain

'I shouldn't have to fix it myself'

You're the one who's cold. No one else.

Don't fix it then. Continue to be cold.

Continue to throw much more £££ on gas than £ on fixing it yourself.

This thread should be the dictionary definition of 'cutting off your nose to spite your face'

OP I think you need to pick your battles. As several people have told you, your door is normal and you can stop the drafts with a few quid of draft-excluder tape or a curtain over the door.

By constantly pestering the council about it, they're likely to just regard you as a nuisance and write off any more serious complaints.

If the house is cold with the heating on, your complaint should be that the heating isn't working properly.

I'm not entitled ,I'm just fed up of one thing after the other in here.

You are certainly coming across as entitled, in this thread. Also YABVVVVVVU.

1. There's nothing wrong with that door
2. Even if there were something about the door, it is heat that rises, not cold. So a small draft coming in at the bottom of the stairs isn't going to rise up the stairs and make the rest of your home freezing
3. You've got 11 pages of people giving you very, very cheap and easy fixes for any draft, but you refuse to consider them
4. Councils are incredibly strapped for money with budgets cuts of billions over the last 8 years. Why do you think it is a good idea to put in another request for someone to look at a non-existent problem - or, at best a problem that could be resolved very easily and cheaply by yourself - when the money could be better spent on people who are actually homeless rather than just too lazy and entitled to make a small adjustment to improve their home ?
5. You won't take on board that - if you have an old an inefficient boiler, an open plan layout, and if you have single glazed windows, and, I'm going to presume (based on the state of the property generally) probably no, or little, insulation around the home, then it is going to be hard to keep warm and it is nothing to do with the front door.

Put ur heating on hun.

Have you tightened the hinges? Might help.

Stating the obvious here but wooden doors have to have a bit of a gap as they expand and contract according to the weather. However, you can stop droughts coming around the door (as lots of pp's have said) putting on draught exclusion tape. You put it on the inside edge of the door frame and when the door closes against it it seals out draughts coming around the door frame. You will also need a draught excluder on the bottom inside edge of the door. Again as pp's have said you can stop the cold air from the door cooling the warmer air inside the flat by putting a thick lined curtain over the door. Get tinfoil and put it on the wall behind your radiators to bounce the maximum amount of heat back into the rooms. You can also buy window insulation film (like huge sheets of cling film) which you attach to the inside frame of your windows and heat gently with a hairdryer to create cheap double glazing which really helps with keeping the warm air inside. Also draw the curtains as soon as it gets dusk (again have warm lined curtains up). If you have radiators under the windows then tuck the curtains down the back of the radiators when they are shut. As you know the council won't do anything to resolve these issues for you but you can make your life more comfortable and reduce your heating bills by doing these simple things.

I am fortunate to be in a relatively new (15 yr old ) HA property and it’s great.

However we have lived in all parts the housing sector...we’ve been home owners, private tenants and now social housing tenants (long long story c’est la vie etc).

The worst properties by a country mile were the the house we owned and the private let. However my previous social housing was extremely cold and th whole building was eventually condemned. It took a lot of time before this was decided though.

The worst property of all was the private let. We all suffered there and my son had respiratory issues from mold spores. It was the one place I was pleased to leave behind,

It looks normal to me. Put a curtain across the door - I live in an open plan house and that's what we do.

I must be old school but door curtains are normal to me. We always had one growing up, my parents have them, my in laws have them and we certainly have a door curtain. I don't understand the big deal

Single glazing on the other hand - much more likely to be the issue

OP I'm in a council property, it's big with small radiators and is freezing in winter. I find the cat sleeping wedged into a radiator often and one morning woke to find her curled up on my boobs.

I do a lot of heating tips and dig out the thick fleeces to wear in the house for everyone and put extra quilts on the bed.

There's nothing wrong with your front door that a curtain over it won't fix. Stop your whining and get on with it.

You'd be better off asking the council to put you on the next block for the windows rather than putting in repairs you don't need.

You can see daylight through the gap on our front door

beetty from the sounds of your set up the door is not the biggest problem in keeping your home warm, but the open plan, 2 radiators and single glazing is probably a bigger problem. Aside from anything else heat rises so the door will have a minimal impact.

Property maintenance is notoriously sketchy when you rent, whether it's from council/housing association/private landlord. Nobody wants to pay out for improvements to something that doesn't directly benefit them. Although I concede there are some stellar private landlords out there who will

The council won't repair just because you keep complaining. They literally don't care. All it will do is flag you as a nuisance tenant and make them take you less seriously when there are issues that they must remedy.

You need to take measures to try and insulate your home for your own benefit. Get draft excluders for your front door (the kind you stick around the door frame), and have a google for ways of improving insulation on single glazed windows. I know cling film is one solution but there are others. Also look at getting reflective materials behind the radiators to encourage heat into your home.

Try and source some heavy curtains too. Closing curtains makes a massive difference to the heat retention in a room.

By all means pursue formal channels to get the council to improve the energy efficiency of your home, check to see if you're eligible for a free boiler upgrade (there are schemes across the country for this) but I'd avoid complaining. Make it more a of mission to improve your surroundings.

I live in a private rental property only 10 years old. Mine has a huge gap in the door which is composite. The door also opens into the living room. I put a curtain up one of the heat reflective door curtains. It has made a huge difference.

We’ve got tape on our door frames. In a previous house we had to drawing pin a massive fleece blanket over the whole door frame and the bathroom window.