No heat or hot water in rented flat with children

[Throwaway1999]

Hi, heat and hot water have been off since Thursday. Landlord came yesterday and couldn't fix it, then plumber came today and said he needs to order boiler parts but everything's shut and we will have to wait until Monday or Tuesday.

Is this true, do we definitely need to wait until then? This will be 5-6 days of no heat or water. It is literally freezing and we can't have baths, kids are wearing their winter coats and just lying in bed.

Your landlord should supply you with an alternative form of heating. You can use a kettle to heat water for washing for a few days.

Last time my heating broke we used an emergency heating repair service and it still took 4 days to get the parts to make the repair.

@Throwaway1999 sounds like your LL is doing the right thing and getting it sorted ASAP.

If the property was your own it would be the same time scale. Parts take time to order. The fact the plumber is his mate might mean it gets fixed faster.

Either buy yourself a couple of oil filled radiators or ask your LL to loan you some. Hot water - use the kettle.

I think the landlord has acted reasonably promptly, and I doubt he could have got the problem fixed earlier.
Where I do think he has underperformed is in not providing you with electric heaters, and additional funds needed to run them.
It also wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect him to pay for entry to a swimming pool or similar so that you can all have hot showers.
My friend who lives in Housing Association property was left 2 weeks without heating one very bad winter, and only lent 2 fan heaters, which used all her electricity credit within hours, but private rents are higher and it’s reasonable for the landlord to contribute.

Parts take time. Ask him to get you a couple of electric heaters if you haven't got one. I assume you haven't got an electric fire or something? Thankfully it's not as cold as last week!

I have home emergency cover on my insurance policy so they paid for heaters, a hotel and towards the cost of a new boiler when it transpired ours couldn’t be fixed.

It was just after Christmas, (sounds like we were both pretty unfortunate!) but that home emergency cover was an absolute blessing as they sorted a plumber asap etc which in the Christmas break for us would have been almost impossible and incredibly expensive.

OP needs to ask landlord for portable electric heaters at the very least imo

You are one of the reasons we sold our rental properties. The audacity.
Landlords are humans and cannot make this stuff happen faster.

You think ITV and BBC would be interested 🤔

You need to get some plug in heaters from amazon or argos

Local Facebook groups are good places to borrow things like plug in heaters and extra blankets. It's shit but don't think timeline is unreasonable.

Ask the ll for plug in electric heaters or to hire some. Do you have an electric shower, can you warm water up on the hob? Even if you were paying the parts might not be available until Monday.

Yes, if the landlord is hard up he can ask on Facebook to borrow some heaters because he needs to supply them to his tenant.

Use your local gym or swimming pool for showers. Wear extra jumpersand socks. Keep moving. Get extra blankets.

But he’s a plumber, who’s come out on a Saturday? Pretty much what an emergency plumber would do?

Well obviously ideally he'll supply them but the priority is OP being warm. Having been in same situation last year I managed to borrow some from people on street until it was resolved.

Try ..
Boiling water in electric kettles.
Use hot water to make a warm bath.
Use hot water to fill hot water bottles.

Wrap 20 potatoes in foil and bake in oven for an hour.
Eat some and use others to place in socks.
Use warm potato socks to heat your beds.
(I remember this from reading Little House on the Prairie.)

Wear layers and some of them actual wool.
Woollen blankets and jumpers from Op.shops.

Visit local pool and have hot showers.
Does your council have facilities available in case of emergencies? Showers at sporting grounds, for example.

Use your camping gear. Below zero sleeping bags.
Drink warm soups.
Eat warm breakfasts.
Drive car with heater on.

Buy or borrow electric heated blankets and battery heated coats that out door workers use. Buy an electric heater for the living room.
Go to bed earlier.
Stay with family or friends.

Have you been left any heaters ? Do you have an immersion or an electric shower?

except that OP pays through the nose, probably, for something that should be in good nick.

I'm not in UK. When this happened to me LL offered to put us in a hotel for one night. And arranged repairs immediately. He lent us heaters and gave us money for the extra electric costs.

And because we are a bit robust, we took him up so we could have one really good shower, and then did bucket showers for the couple of days until the hot water was fixed.

Hi Op, I'm in the same boat as you but at least I live on my own and don't have children. Been 3 days without heating and hot water. Plumber said he can't do the work until Tuesday. Landlord just suggested I buy an electric heater and boil kettles for hot water. I can't afford electric heaters but I don't want to piss my landlord off so I'll just have to grin and bear it. I hope you get sorted very soon x

It's pretty mild out...

Could not agree more. Just because a house is rented does not mean the owner can get it fixed any faster. These things happen. its inconvenient of course. But that's life. It's being fixed.

So ask the landlord to provide heaters. It's a massive cheek of the landlord to suggest you buy them. One small advantage of paying extortionate private rent is that the landlord has responsibility to fix and remedy issues, not that you can detect that from some of the contemptuous posts by landlords on this thread.

Your landlord has acted swiftly. Sometimes boilers break and there’s no quick fix. We’ve all been there. It’s miserable but you’ll be ok x

Can you borrow a small radiator and concentrate on heating one room. Hot water bottles and blankets on the sofas in the evenings. Go and stay with a friend ? What would you do if it was your own house ?

If landlord won't lend you a heater ask around your friends and neighbours, a lot of people have a spare electric heater or two for these situations. Our heating broke recently and 4 different people offered to lend us heaters. If you do need to buy, just one in Argos today shouldn't be much money. Just heat and live in one or two rooms. Cook with the oven, it gets a bit more heat into the house.

Thurs -Tues sounds pretty prompt, it's a pain but just one of those things.

Honestly, I hear you but my landlord is awful. I don't want to risk bothering them .