Help! Gas condemned and no heat/water/cooking for 3 days!

dan_m2k

Hi everyone,

We live in a housing association flat and got a knock on our door this afternoon (lucky I wasn't at work) by a gas engineer. He told us Transco had just condemned the gas supply and cut all fifty flats off so we don't have hot water, cooking facilities or heating. The document they put through the letterbox says that all the building's pipework is immediately dangerous!

The housing association have offered everyone £20/person/day subsistence and told us that it could be up to six weeks before it's sorted, though they'll know more when Transco visit again on Monday coming. Meanwhile? We're left with no heat or hot water or stove for the weekend and we're a bit stuck.

The housing association have fobbed us off a bit about the whole thing and have told us that we should basically put up and shut up for the weekend.

Does anyone know what our rights are or have any advice on where to start? This isn't right at all and I could use some ammo when they are open again on Monday.

Thanks all.

rustyjemma

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/HomeAndCommunity/Planning/GrantsFundsAndStandards/DG_10020842

is this of any help?

andrew-b

£20/person/day sounds very reasonable compensation to me. The timescale isn't as reasonable...though 50 flats is alot to replace the pipework for. I would read your rental agreement and literature supplied by your housing association as they may outline the housing associations responsibilities and your entitlement to compensation for this sort of situation. I think the housing association will be pretty much at the hands of the gas supplier (transco or whatever they are called in your area now).

Rather than all 50 flats independently phoning up all the time and complaining/pestering the housing association get someone (maybe you?) to go represent everyone and knock on doors and put up notices near the entrance area with what is happening. You should have a housing officer that you really need to be dealing with direct rather than multiple residents going through multiple service agents in a call centre and pushing similar notes to the housing officer. Ask for the housing officer to come and meet you and other residents to discuss the situation and then keep in contact with them regularly until everything is back to normal.

Yes i do completely sympathise that it will be very inconvenient but what else could they do? Rehousing isn't really an option because of the cost implications and lack of availability. Yes the supply may have been ok until now but if the pipework has been condemned legally there is no way they are going to turn it back on. All you can hope for is that the pipework is replaced ASAP.

In August there is no real need for central heating, hot water - if there isn't an immersion heater then boil a kettle or goto friends/family/sports centre for showers, cooking - microwave/takeaways. I'm sure £20 per person per day would easily cover those expenses when you consider you won't be using any gas for heating/hotwater/cooking. We pay about £20 per month for heat/hotwater/gas hob ...so i'm sure you can make profit out of that compensation!

I have lived in a housing association block of flats of similar size in the past and experienced various problems as well as managing to get compensation for the whole block for lack of cleaning of communal areas, repairs to lifts and other minor things. To get the offer you've been given without a fight is pretty good i'd say bearing in mind housing associations generally have very little spare money to go around. However if you can goto the top of the housing association and get to the director things seem to happen much quicker. When the bins at our flat were constantly overflowing and no cleaning being done despite many complaints i managed to get contact details for the director of the housing association and then sent him an email including pictures - i had a phone call within the hour from him with promises of the situation being resolved and compensation!

We all tend to take quite alot of things for granted in this day and age. In our house we have been 5 days so far without fridge/freezer whilst we await repair (oh and as we no longer rent no compensation for that!) - i'm quite surprised how easy it is to get by without one! We've also lived on microwave meals and takeaways for about 3 or 4 months when we first moved in until we got a new kitchen installed.

Andy

dan_m2k

Thanks for the replies, all.

After speaking with TRANSCO or whatever they call themselves, the problem is that all the internal pipework is 'immediately dangerous' because of the material it was made from!

This really worries me that we've been living with this danger for 2+years now and whilst Transco are taking it very seriously the HA are trying to trivialise the situation.

amcluesent

Sounds like a load of jobsworths making sure that no-one can lay a claim for compo on them.

I'd go the the local paper/TV; great story 'gas prices rocket, but uncaring company leaving 50 families cold and hungry!"

dan_m2k

Tried calling the local press with no affect... will try again later.

Anyone 'in the know' could possibly give us some advice? Spoke to a neighbour while TRANSCO where here and they were especially concerned with the service panels in the walls which I've took pics of--

http://dan.photos.us.com/c1562492.html

IF anyone has any idea of why they cut us off from the pics I'd love any info I can throw at them (even if it is a best-guess, I'd rather sound like I 5% knew that what I was on about rather than the 0% now!)

andrew-b

I wouldn't know what is wrong but i was really expecting it all to be really old with rusty iron pipes not modern yellow plastic! To me it looks like the housing association have maintained the property well - or they've at least tarted it up to make it look nice! Perhaps the problem relates more to where the yellow pipes connect up with? I really don't know but hopefully someone else here does! I doubt your going to get the definitive answer out of the gas network company before monday.

Andy

dan_m2k

Agree-- Transco dont give much info out by phone and the housing association have played it down loads.

Another 'plumbers forum' have led me to believe the yellow plastic MDPE pipe shouldnt have been used above ground and its actually illegal (its a relatively new-build; 2yrs or so)