Radiator fell off the wall

[creativelady22]

Hi,

I have rented my property for just over 2 years. It is a new build and I am the second tenant, never had any problems.

I have 2 radiators in my living room and one of which is on a stud wall between the living room and en suite. The radiator came away from the wall 2 months ago and was repaired by the agent with no problem.

It has fallen off again and on reporting it, we now seem to have an issue. The agent is saying that the plumber has reported that the brackets were upside down on this visit when they weren't the last time he came. I explained that when it fell off again, we attempted to secure it back and hold it in place with our sofa till it can be fixed and we might have not attached it the right way.

The plumber said to us that it was unusually heavy and drained a load of sludge from it, and it was so heavy I couldn't help my husband lift it up to hang back on the precarious/balanced brackets. He seemed to be of the opinion it was an issue as there is no grip in the wall to hold it properly. But he's gone back to the agent and basically tried to insinuate it is something we might have done. They are saying the weight of the sludge cant have brought it off the wall and it cant have fallen as our sofa is in front of it (it crashed down to the floor). They are now talking about us paying the plumbers costs.

Has anyone ever had a radiator come off a wall in a new build house?

AIBU to be upset by this or should I just pay the £280 (£140 a visit) and keep the peace? In the current climate rentals in my area are very rare and we love it here.

I bet the fixings used to secure it to were rubbish and that it was just fastened into plasterboard. Some fixings are made for this type of job but probably weren’t used when the house was built due to cost. GripIt fixings are really good.

I suspect when it was fixed the patch job on the plasterboard was rubbish so it just happened again. If they just did a small patch the repair will have been weak, it would have needed a bigger piece of the plasterboard replacing at least.

Even better if it had been fastened into the studwork behind the plasterboard but I suspect that might have meant doing things correctly and moving pipework if necessary.

How is it getting full of sludge?

It is not your responsibility to pay for the landlord to get it repaired properly.

We had a radiator fall off because the dodgy builder had attached it just to the plasterboard with no baton behind the plaster. It stayed up for 6 years (repairing plumber was amazed it had stayed up that long) and then fell off last winter. It was a heavy upright one, but it sounds similar, as though yours hasn't been put up right.

A radiator shouldn't be sludging up that quickly. Is the boiler being serviced and the correct additives added to the heating system tank?

Radiators don't fall off because of sludge.

Yours has fallen off because of poor installation on a plasterboard wall.
They need to screw.a whole piece of board behind it, then re-fit the radiator on to it properly.

I would get lots of pics of 'suggested installation of radiators to plasterboard' and send them in to agent.