How long is it reasonable to leave a tenant without hot water?

[Noonado]

Just that really. The problem with boiler was reported by tenant, and diagnosed and action advised by a professional within 12 hours.

As soon as possible but not everything can be fixed within 24 hours. We have been without heating/hot water for a week despite having emergency boiler cover before.

It's not always easy to get someone to come out and sometimes there are availability issues with parts etc.

Yes, I’m the tenant, and was wondering if I needed to be more proactive! We have small children in the house, no electric shower or immersion, and no hot water since the start of the week. Property manager had gone quiet and I was wondering if I’d be reasonable to chase them up.

BUT… they’ve just got in touch to say landlord has given the go ahead for the necessary work, so all is good. Thanks for all the opinions!

For the landlord to take a decision? A few hours at most unless they want to have another quote.
but I’d have expected them to have sent to person they trusted (repair and cost wise) to make the evaluation in the first place. So no need to have someone else giving a quote?

12 hours is totally fine

I can see the issue is sorted @Noonado

But fwiw I think you need to remember that if it was your house, you woudo have the same sort if issues than the landlord.
it can be hard to get someone to come and have a look at the heating system. And it then takes time for the repairs to be done. A week isn’t unusual even if yiu are th downer and are trying to have it done asap.

Just re-read. The landlord should have agreed for the work to go ahead as soon as gas engineer diagnosed the problem

Not always as simple as that. The call-out engineer plumber may not be the person doing the repair work. The landlord can 'agree for the work to go ahead' but finding someone to do it may be a different matter!

I was left 10 days without hot water by my HA. I complained as I had a baby. They said it’s ok because you have heating and access to tap water to heat in a kettle.

I would say max 3 days

As landlords we would try and have it fixed same day but within 24 hours if that wasn't possible.

Hot water is a basic right in this country op

no way will this be done tomorrow unless you seriously woman up here. And that means no hot water over the weekend

This! I see this from two angles.

Firstly, I am a LL and have a rule that I deal with these kind of things in exactly the same way I would for myself. If I would choose a more expensive contractor for myself to avoid inconvenience, then Id certainly expect to do the same for any tenant. And if that involved taking the time to chase etc then that's what Id do.

Secondly I manage a plumbing and heating firm, and get many calls from LLs desperate to get tenants back up and running. However at the moment, we are booked weeks and weeks in advance, and there is nothing we can do about it. We try to help where we can, and move service and maintenance jobs, but if the day is booked with repair jobs then I cant prioritise one customer over another just because it is a tenanted property. It seems half the gas engineers in our area disappeared after covid, we have 000s of new customers who cant get hold of previous engineers. Not sure about other areas but here the demand is well above the supply.

You should have gone to your MP and local paper. Meanwhile spent some time in front of mirror perfecting your “sad face”

this was unacceptable but with enough ooomph, I would have got that hot water back in within 48 hours

With my tenant, a single mother
I paid for a fortune for home emergency assist that could be called out 24 hours a days.

needed needed to be used as I had a new Worcester Bosch combi installed just before she moved in

she was there for 9 years and we are still in contact

Ours was 48 hours I think maybe 24. We knocked £50 off their rent to accommodate their extra use of the kettle during that time