Failed Gas Safety Check, Advice Please.

Mylo0811

davidmcn wrote: »

Are there showers at work?
Gym?
Swimming pool?
Friends?
Relatives?
Neighbours?
Landlord's house?

I work for a well known german supermarket, so unfortunately not. Getting up some days at 03:30 for work, means every minute I can have in bed is crucial lol. And popping round to a friends at that time... well I'm unsure how long they'd remain friends.

n217970

Mylo0811 wrote: »

If I owned the house, I'd have emergency cover for something like this so it would be sorted ASAP.

:rotfl:

Even with emergency cover it will either need a new part - that will be with you a week on Tuesday or it'll need a new boiler, and "we are booked up until January"

Pixie5740

The landlord just has to carry out repairs with in a reasonable timeframe. Presumably you have a kettle OP and therefore access to hot water. If you are cold wear extra clothes and use blankets or buy yourself a convection heater for a few quid. They're handy to have in case of boiler failures in the future.

See G_M's guide to Repairing Obligations if you want to know your rights.

This is a busy time of year for gas safety engineers so it's hard cheese if you find being without a working boiler for more than a few days unacceptable.

IAmWales

Mylo0811 wrote: »

I am more wondering about my rights.
If he fixes it pronto then great, but if I'm days or even weeks without hot water. That to me is not acceptable. I'm paying £850 a month, and the boiler has been installed incorrectly. Which means whoever did the safety certificate I currently have didn't do it properly.

Your rights are to a repair in a reasonable timeframe.

What are the identified issues?

What has the landlord said when you spoke to him about it?

FBaby

He's only been today and it sounds like it was a routine check, so give the LL a chance! Did the engineer tell you that you had to turn everything off immediately?

Are you dealing with the LL directly or an agency?

breaking_free

n217970 wrote: »

:rotfl:

Even with emergency cover it will either need a new part - that will be with you a week on Tuesday or it'll need a new boiler, and "we are booked up until January"

I can confirm this. I have boiler/central heating repair cover with British gas and they've always managed to squeeze me in the very next day. Not so this week!

Made an appointment on Sunday and the earliest they can get here is Thursday. In the meantime I've borrowed 4 heaters to stave off the chill. Your landlord won't be able to magic up a tradie to come look at the boiler any quicker than you could arrange it yourself I'm afraid.

Mylo0811

Pixie5740 wrote: »

The landlord just has to carry out repairs with in a reasonable timeframe. Presumably you have a kettle OP and therefore access to hot water. If you are cold wear extra clothes and use blankets or buy yourself a convection heater for a few quid. They're handy to have in case of boiler failures in the future.

See G_M's guide to Repairing Obligations if you want to know your rights.

This is a busy time of year for gas safety engineers so it's hard cheese if you find being without a working boiler for more than a few days unacceptable.

Busy time of year or not, there's no hard cheese about it.
It needs to be sorted in a reasonable time frame and I asked on here to establish what my rights are if it is not fixed within a reasonable time frame.
I understand it may take a few days. Longer, however is unacceptable.

n217970 wrote: »

:rotfl:

Even with emergency cover it will either need a new part - that will be with you a week on Tuesday or it'll need a new boiler, and "we are booked up until January"

Yeah, I'd imagine that'd be the general gist...

FBaby wrote: »

He's only been today and it sounds like it was a routine check, so give the LL a chance! Did the engineer tell you that you had to turn everything off immediately?

Are you dealing with the LL directly or an agency?

I am given him a chance, I'm trying to find out my rights so I know what to do if it isn't repaired in a reasonable time frame.
The engineer has shut off the boiler, and put a warning sticker on it.

Pixie5740

Mylo0811 wrote: »

Busy time of year or not, there's no hard cheese about it.
It needs to be sorted in a reasonable time frame and I asked on here to establish what my rights are if it is not fixed within a reasonable time frame.
I understand it may take a few days. Longer, however is unacceptable.

Unacceptable to you maybe but longer, as in a week of two, would still be within a reasonable timeframe as far as the law is concerned. To give you an idea I spent 6 weeks in winter without a working boiler because I couldn't physically get a gas safety engineer to carry out the work any faster and I live in North East Scotland, where is does actually get a bit nippy, in a building made from granite. I survived and so will you.

Mylo0811

IAmWales wrote: »

Your rights are to a repair in a reasonable timeframe.

What are the identified issues?

What has the landlord said when you spoke to him about it?

Three things...
1 - The flue is angled the wrong way, it should be angled so condensed water runs back to boiler apparently. The way it is, is causing the flue to corrode and allowing gases to enter the property.

2 - The flue is installed too close to the eaves of the property.

3 - A pipe of some sort is half the diameter it should be.

What constitutes a reasonable timeframe?

I can't get hold of the landlord at the minute.

IAmWales

You don't seem to understand that what you deem to be reasonable, and what is reasonable in the given circumstances, may be very different things. Reasonable is finding a Gas Safe engineer, them assessing the work, sourcing the parts and then fitting them. Each of those stages depends on availability of parts and labour, and of course access to the property.

Reasonable may well be longer than a few days.

(Reading your update, parts should be easy to source but there's a good amount of labour. Reasonableness will come down to engineer availability.)