House is FREEZING. Does the LL have any obligations?

crispsandwich

I'm writing on behalf of my best friend. Her house is constantly cold. It does not have gas central heating, but there are storage heaters in every room. Currently the warmest room in the house is the lounge, and the temperature averages about 13-14 degrees. The main bedroom is the second warmest room, with the temperature usually at 10 degrees. These readings are with the heaters on constantly in every room. There is double glazing. She's dreading her electricity bill. The other rooms are so cold you can see your breath (this is with the heaters supposedly working), although my friend has not been taking readings (though I have nagged her to). She has an 8 month old child who is currently living away from home but the LL and LA are not aware of this, although they are aware she has a child and the child has lived with her for a few months in the house. Her LL and LA have fobbed her off whenever she has telephoned them and mentioned the heating. They just say they'll ring back but don't. One of the heaters was replaced (in the baby's room) and that improved things, but the LL said he can't afford to replace the lot.

My friend just says she will ask the LL to fit gas central heating and if he won't she will just vacate at the end of the tenancy. She has 6 or 7 weeks left of the tenancy. She does not think there is any obligation for the LL to keep the house warm by providing adequate heating, but surely with such low temperatures the house is uninhabitable?

Any thoughts? Thanks for reading

poppysarah

She should move.

The house is considered bad if it doesn't have programable heating and will score lower on Energy certificates which a new tenant would have.

Next time she rents somewhere get her to check out the heating and energy certificate.

jenniferfluff29

Have the same problem. I checked with Shelter. There is a grey area in the law. Our storage heaters are working but because they are about 10 year old, they are ineffective and do not heat the house (it is a cold house even though it is only 10 years old). There is nothing in the law that states that heating must reach a specific temperature in the home or that a LL has to repair an ineffective heater (only if it breaks down) and then they can provide a different heating source. Our landlord gave us 1 oil filled electric radiator to use between 2 bedrooms. I have had a data logger (logs temperature) in my bedroom over xmas and new year. During the frosty period over new year it showed that the temperature in my room was 9 degs during the night and 13 degs when the heating had been on for 2.5 hours. I don't think this is acceptable but the landlord has met his obligations by providing a heating source. My electricity for November was £180 and the house is cold.

Move out as soon as you can and make sure that you check the next house's heating system.

TJ27

The government places an EXTREMELY high importance on the effects of cold in rented houses. It is probably the number one priority of the Housing Health and Safety Rating System that houses should be warm, and not without reason.

Loads of landlords seem to think it doesn't really matter if a house is cold yet most would agree that fire safety is quite important, for example. Well the number of people who die from fire per year is in the hundreds. About three hundred in fact. The number of people who die from CO is in the tens. The number of people who needlessly die because they are too cold in their homes is somewhere between twenty five and thirty thousand. So if anybody thinks tenants should just put up with cold rooms they are very wrong.

If you are cold, get your private sector rental people around and ask them to do a HHSRS assesment. Your house will almost certainly be classified as a category one hazard and the person who visits MUST take action. He or she will tell the landlord to sort it out.

This may be useful:

http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/housing/pdf/142631.pdf

Here's a bit of what it says:

Heating should be controllable by the occupants, and safely and properly installed and maintained. It should be appropriate to the design, layout and construction, such that the whole of the dwelling can be adequately and efficiently heated.

It's extremely easy to find a standard by which a dwelling can be shown to be "adequately and efficiently heated."

It's all very well to just move out and it's a solution. But what if the landlord persuades an elderly person to move in next winter or something?

poppysarah

If it's SO important why aren't rent levels set according to EPC?

TJ27

poppysarah wrote: »

If it's SO important why aren't rent levels set according to EPC?

Because an EPC is an indicator of how efficient a house is, not how warm it is. The two may be related but they are different.

And because it's not particularly ethical to suggest that people with no money should freeze to death, whereas the rich should be nice and cosy. Everybody is entitled to be warm.

withabix

A storage heater is a metal box full of concrete blocks and a heating element.

As close to 100% efficient as it is possible to get, as all of the elctricity used is converted into heat.

The heat is absorbed into the concrete blocks and is radiated by them.

Most storage heaters have:

a) a control to set the amount of heat stored
b) a control which adjusts baffles on the vents to control the rate at which some of the heat is dissipated into the room.

They MUST be left on, otherwise they will not store heat up when the Economy 7 circuit comes on at night.

In the winter, the storage setting must be turned up HIGH in cold weather.

If the heaters don't produce much heat, they aren't using much electricity.

poppysarah

TJ27 wrote: »

Because an EPC is an indicator of how efficient a house is, not how warm it is. The two may be related but they are different.

And because it's not particularly ethical to suggest that people with no money should freeze to death, whereas the rich should be nice and cosy. Everybody is entitled to be warm.

I meant that landlords shouldn't get huge rents for poorly insulated and heated houses.

EPC covers type of heating, insulation etc which is fairly useful to know.

Gorgeous_George

My BTL had old night storage heaters (downstairs only). I offered to install GCH or new NSHs and my tenant chose NSHs.

It's a large 4 bedroom property with 3 NSHs downstairs and one upstairs There is also a (standard rate) 60W heated towel rail in the bathroom. It is extremely warm 24 hours a day. The cavity walls are insulated (rockwool) and there is some loft insulation however, this is due to be upgraded to the latest standard.

Do you have instructions for the heaters? manual versions have two controls. One controls the input (the bricks get hotter with this on maximum but this will cost more); the other controls the output and should be off when heat is not required (this keeps the bricks hot).

You could contact Warmfront who may be able to help with a grant for insulation/heating.

GG

TJ27

poppysarah wrote: »

I meant that landlords shouldn't get huge rents for poorly insulated and heated houses.

EPC covers type of heating, insulation etc which is fairly useful to know.

I can see where you're coming from but the reality is still that people with less rent money would end up in poorly insulated house and people with more rent money would get well insulated houses. So in general the poor would be cold and the rich would be warm. Moreover, the people who are most vulnerable to the cold (over 65s) are among those who are least able to afford high rents. It just wouldn't be right.

The only way something like that might work would be to say, "You cannot rent out your house at all unless you achieve an energy rating of D". Or something along those lines. Then perhaps have a sliding scale for C, B and A ratings. All houses should be adequately warm, not just the expensive ones.

I agree that the EPC is useful though.

poppysarah

Yes - perhaps that's it. Landlords should only be able to rent out in they meet minimum standards. It's not like there's not schemes giving them the insulation for free either.