Is my landlord legally obliged to provide central heating?

[CatKisser]

Hi all,
I'm preparing for a meeting with my LL and would like to go in from an informed point of view so would appreciate advice.
I live in a 2 bedroom semi - a farm cottage n the middle of nowhere. My LL is the farmer and lives opposite me in the huge farm house. He is a nice chap in some ways but IMO negligent when it comes to his properties.

My issue is heating. I have 2 open fires which are inefficient - the heat goes straight up the chimney. Three rooms also have storage hearers which I'm not keen on as they give out heat while I'm at work, which is a waste, and they're expensive to run.

Finally, upstairs there are 2 radiators which do not work and never have. LL's builder says some inexperienced chap put them in and never got them fixed when they failed to work.

The winter gone was my first in the house and was terrible. I was FREEZING. Every night without fail I was on the sofa with a duvet watching my own breath. I pay £525/month and actually I don't think I'm unreasonable to ask for adequate heating.

Someone I spoke to had an idea that rental properties HAD to have proper central heating in them...can anyone advise on this?
Thanks!

Special You can't get the midday boast tariff anymore. I tried.

As others have said, your LL doesn't need to provide central heating. In the first instance, I'd ask him to check that all the existing heating is working. It sounds obvious but sometimes back boilers can have a switch in an odd place eg boiler in the living room, switch in the kitchen, timer in a hall cupboard! If one part of the system isn't on or programmed correctly then it doesn't work. Then, once you are sure that the radiators aren't working, you can ask him to get them fixed or replace them.

I'm not entirely sure what kind of radiators you have upstairs. They may be left over from an old system that preceded the storage heaters. However if that wasn't explained to you when you first viewed the property, it wasn't unreasonable of you to assume they would work.

If they are mentioned in your inventory then the LL either has to fix them or replace them.

I just had another thought - depending on the age and style of the property, insulation might be an issue.

There are grants available for insulation and it can be retrofitted to a lot of properties so it might be worth researching the grants. Then you could recommend that to the LL. He wouldn't have to pay, it would improve his property, and you'd have a house that retained heat.

according to a recent moneysaving expert post, three suppliers do economy 10, and EDF (the OP's supplier) is one of them. It will probably take some arguing - it did when I had it with Scottish Power - so ask to speak to someone above the call centre if no joy there.