Expected to go 2 weeks without heating or hot water

[parmohotshot]

Hi

Private tenant here, the boiler in the property is 20 years old, I know this because the woman who used to own this house lives across the street and she had said boiler installed in the early 2000's!

Over the course of the last year and a half various things on the boiler have failed and there has been at least 10 visits by a heating engineer. The engineers say the boiler needs to be replaced but the landlord is insistent on replacing parts and keeping it limping along.

However on fri 27th Jan the boiler went kaput completely, the pressure gauge had gone to 4 bar and there was water leaking out of it. The engineer came out on the Monday, did a repair then less than 10 minutes after them leaving it failed again, went into lockout.

This resulted in the engineer saying the boiler needs to be replaced and they have sent the landlord a quote.

Managing estate agent said the landlord was blaming the engineer for a poor repair and wouldn't authorise a new boiler.

I kicked off, boiler now authorised but apparently because the landlord didn't pay for the boiler in time I now have to wait until Friday for them to come out and do the job as there's apparently no other availability, meaning I will have gone for 2 whole weeks without heating and hot water!!

Worse still, the estate agents want to come out and inspect this week!!! I can't wash clothes, have a bath (shower works but it's not very nice as the air in the bathroom is freezing), I can't do dishes or anything !!!

I have gone my ends but I've just been told tough titty essentially.

I feel like I'm in the twilight zone, am I being unreasonable to expect a rent reduction or the job to be brought forward???

If the engineer is only available to fit the boiler on Friday then that's how long it will take to get a new boiler fitter.

There are things you could be insisting on now

• a kettle
• heaters
• rent reduction to account for extra electricity costs.

Those are reasonable steps to expect your landlord to take, but it's pretty standard that there is a lead time for works to be completed.

Over a year ago we had a new boiler fitted and first availability was 3 weeks after I requested the work.

Two things can be true at the same time-
Landlord is not doing his part of the tenancy contract by not doing repairs ina timely manner. And I think you deserve some compensation
But also you could do something's to help yourself.
If you buy a £10 kettle this doesn't mean you think what the landlord has done is ok.

Ask the landlord/agency for space heaters, money off the bill, a kettle.

Inspections are not to see how tidy a house is
It's to look at if there is damage or evidence of neglect.
If anything is put down on the report just send an e-mail saying thank you for highlighting but I have no hot water at the minute which I am sure you are aware of and leave it at that.

I think there are two different issues.

Should you be given electric heaters, money for the launderette etc to compensate you for this? Yes

Is there any reason not to do the washing up and can I complain about the timeline? No

I think it is the helpless 'i can't possibly' that has set the tone in that a two week wait isn't that long. But equally you shouldn't be out of pocket or have zero heating in that time

Yanbu, OP. We had to wait 3 weeks for a new boiler in the summer, and that was pretty rubbish - it is our own house, so no landlord issues, just waiting for the boiler itself and for the availability of our plumber.

Being without a boiler at this time of year is infinitely worse. I hope you find a way of getting through it.

First up - delay the inspection. You don't have to let them in anyway so just delay it until boiler is fixed.

Second up - negotiate: "landlord as a responsible tenant I don't want to risk damp by drying sopping clothes indoors so of course you'll be paying for my tumble dryer fees at the local laundrette".

Also electric heaters. Point them towards cold home guidance: www.gov.uk/government/publications/how-to-rent-a-safe-home/how-to-rent-a-safe-home
(Search for the word "cold" to get to the relevant bit)

Yes shit happens and things break and tradespeople are busy but renting accommodation is a business. In any other context we don't accept a service provider letting things fall into disrepair and then saying "sorry erm you have to keep paying me but I can't fix it for three weeks because the quick fix is too expensive". Bollocks to that.

You can ask for rent reduction but you probably won’t get one. You can ask for reasonable compensation and heaters. Have you asked for these? 2 weeks is no big deal for a new boiler, they can’t cancel people to fit you in.

I've been the landlord in this situation and taken longer to get a fix due to the frustration of finding a reliable engineer who attends and then knows what they're doing. We supplied a dehumidifier, heaters for each bedroom and a rent discount for each week they needed to be used. It was really frustrating but simple fixes like a kettle and heaters your landlord should be approached for. Having also lived through the cold snap last year without heating it is manageable but takes a bit more effort. Do you have a launderette nearby or outside space to dry clothes?

As an aside, what does ‘gone my ends’ mean? I’ve Googled but no definitive answer found.

We had a similar situation (with no shower) recently and it was shit. But manageable. You can wash dishes by eating up water in a pan.
but LL needs to provide electric heaters and pay for cost of them- not just to warm you up but also to dry clothes, damp clothes piling up is not good at all. Btw my clothes did almost dry being left out on the line yesterday.

Where do you live that your house is 0? Or are you just guessing. Its just our boiler (also private renting) died the first night of the snow in December and we were without heating for a week during the snow and even in the conservatory with all the glass and stone floors the lowest it dipped to was 11 degrees. And yes we all froze so you have my sympathy. Our real estate agent said we could buy heaters but we couldn't guarantee the landlord would reimburse us.
I am guessing you don't have a dryer then if you can only dry your clothes naturally?

Many absolutely ridiculous replies on here. Talk to Shelter.

Your landlord could have sourced a new boiler from somewhere like IHeat - who install within 24 hours.

Agree you’ve had some shitty replies here.

I would tell the estate agents that due to the boiler issue you want to put the inspection off for two weeks because it’s been too stressful and miserable working around the lack of hot water and heating. But if you don’t want to do that, it doesn’t really matter whether you’ve done the washing up or the laundry. They are checking on whether you’ve damaged the home you’ve rented, not whether you meet some 1950s home keeping standard.

Also I second asking for heaters, a kettle and a rent reduction. And talk to Shelter about your rights.

Im sorry you’re having to cope with this. It’s miserable.

I agree with you. Speak to CAB and see what they can do for you/what advice they can give you. It's not fair that due to factors out of your control (i.e. your landlord making the decision not to keep the boiler up to standard) you're without basic utilities.

I feel what some are missing in their responses here is that it's not a case of "worst case scenario has happened, boiler's bust, have to wait two weeks for a new one", but that the landlord has been utterly, knowingly negligent and hence OP is left without very basic utilities, which wouldn't have been the case had OP been able to make decisions like replacing the boiler. It's more about the fact that OP is in this situation because of a subpar landlord and the fact that that landlord is seemingly content to let their tenant live like this through no fault of their own.

Life happens sometimes and yeah, sometimes we have to put up with shitty situations in an emergency; but this could have been avoided, OP tried to avoid this situation, but has been left to endure the consequences. I think they have a good case for some form of compensation or help.

As a homeowner, it can often take that long to book someone in to do repairs. That is with me calling around and trying to find anyone with availability and with me not always being too concerned with finding the best cost because time matters. The worst is when you finally get to the big day and it turns out they need to order unexpected parts.

it seems like your landlord has finally agreed to do the right thing and is just constrained by reality.

I have also had landlords that simply drag their feet on repairs. The worst was a landlord who preferred to use repairpeople who would work off the books for cash when they happened to have free time on evening and weekends. It could take weeks to get someone to show up. The reliability was non-existent and the quality of the repairs was extremely poor.

Well your landlord's cheapness in doing constant repairs instead of replacing has caused this. I'd expect a reduction in rent for two weeks without heating and hot water.

It's probably limited help but lots of people in New Zealand do their washing with cold water. We don't heat it in the machine. Our machines are set up so we can just choose cold fill. Stuff comes out clean.

I think it's one thing being asked to live without heating for 2 weeks in winter but 2 weeks without hot water for baths/showers is another thing. (Dishes and clothes washing is much more manageable.)
My rental doesn't have an immersion heater - and relies solely on the boiler as does the shower. There are no gyms/pools etc within a 10 mile radius so if I needed to wash myself and the boiler was broken, it would be very frustrating. Not everybody has friends or family nearby whose facilities they can borrow.
Things do go wrong but in this case OP's landlord could have reasonably foreseen that the boiler was at the very end of its life and made arrangements to have it replaced in a non-emergency situation.

I was the landlord in this situation end of last year - without replacing all the parts. The boiler blew on a Friday and the agents didn't tell me until early the next week. They sent me one quote and it was extortionate (£5k for a new boiler) so I asked them for two more. I responded within an hour of the email, but it took them a week to get those quotes to me. Again, I responded straight away, but it took a few days for the boiler company to install a new one. My tenant refused to pay her rent the next month in protest.

It might not be the landlord at fault. Sometimes it takes time for an engineer to come round. You're legally entitled to buy heaters and have them reimbursed.

Only on Mumsnet hey

I think it's more a case of legal rights and wrongs. The landlord has an obligation to fix the boiler, which he's doing apparently. The law accepts that things sometimes take a while to fix. In the meantime the place is inconvenient but habitable, so there's no need for the landlord to provide you with alternative accommodation. He might well be an arse, but the law does not provide a remedy for that.

(Similarly tenants might not pay the rent on time. That might be because they are arses and would rather spend their money on fags and scratch cards. Assuming they do pay the landlord has no remedy either.)

AIBU is a bit ambiguous for these questions. Do you want to know your rights? Or do you want sympathy?

Not sure you can blame your landlord for your lack of kettle (buy one for a few quid and take it off the rent?) And I would suggest that most people don't use a tumble drier these days with cost of energy what it is..

Unscheduled boiler replacement is a big job and my experience is the plumbers will do their best to fit it in around other already scheduled jobs. YABU expecting them to cancel other people booked in to get yours done.

Landlord does sound like a difficult character though

Ha ha ha...I wish...We've been three months without a shower or bath (using a bucket and a kettle). Can't wait for works to start later this week.

You can do the dishes in cold water, I do if needed.

I don't know how you put up with a cold shower though. That is horrid. I've done it in summer when I had a similar issue but it's so cold at the mo.

Roll on spring...

Actually, a plus side...having washed my hair in freezing cold water for 3 months, it is is much better condition than previously. And that's without conditioner. I think I may be on to something here....