No Hot Water - Advice Needed

London_d1981

Evening all,

I was looking for a little advice regarding a hot water issue in the property that I rent.

At the start of the month I reported to my landlord that we had a problem with the hot water running cold after about 30 seconds or less. (There was a boiler issue a few months before however a temporary fix was put in place - LL was warned that the issue would recur if the boiler wasn't replaced).

So the first contact was made on the 4th March, the landlord agreed with me that British Gas would attend on the Monday the 9th to replace the boiler.

On the Friday evening he called me to say that they were not now going to attend as he had found a cheaper alternative (one of his contacts), the first point being I'd taken a days' leave to be at home for this and could not change this, so I lost a day.
I was then told that that his contact would call me, he did not - despite the LL telling me that he had been calling me - but I had no contact from his contact.

LL said instead that they would come to view the issue on the Monday (When I was off) but then did not, and he called to say he would have to attend later that week so he attended on the Thursday with his contact and they spent some time looking a the boiler whilst my Wife was home, they left and then the issue got worse and there has been no hot water at all.

The LL then called to say he could get the boiler replaced this weekend (21/22 Mar).

It will be almost 3 weeks without hot water come this weekend, we have had to resort to showering at the gym or friends houses, or boiling kettles for hot water for showers and for washing dishes, which will no doubt increase our electricity bill, we've also had the additional fuel costs for driving to places for a shower! It's really getting to a point where it's not really on.

Has anyone been in a similar situation?

Does anyone have any guidelines on what kind of compensation I should ask for this kind of breakdown? (Bearing in mind that it could have been fixed a few days after it happened had the original appointment been kept)

Does this constitute a breach of contract on an AST?

Many Thanks

LD

Pixie5740

There hasn't been a breach of the AST and legally you are due no compensation. That's not to say you might not be able to negotiate some compensation with your landlord, if you don't ask you don't get.

You access to hot water as you have a kettle. Yes you're using electricity to boil the water but if you weren't you'd be using gas. Your landlord does appear to be doing something albeit slowly to get the boiler fixed/replaced. It might help to write to your landlord (ink, paper, envelope, stamp, get proof of postage) about the repair just in case you need to escalate the matter further down the line.

If the heating is still working but there's no hot water it could just be a faulty divertor valve. The engineer who originally said the boiler had to be replaced might just have been trying to generate some extra work. Not that it really matters to you as one way or another you just want the hot water working again and quite rightly so.