huge bill on electricity of vulnerable severely disabled man- carers left heating on constantly

SAC2334

Robin9 said:

I really don't think control of the heating is what they are employed to do.  As has been said a programable thermostat.  AHive or Nest would enable you to control it from your own home.

My late wife was a home carer for years. She was not allowed to touch any heating controls. they can be complex things to operate. there would be different staff coming in, including temps. heating controls would be up to the family or relatives. Best of luck to the OP making a claim

MWT

There is much we do not know in a situation like this such as the degree of agency that the individual has, the existence or not of an Advocate, and if they have given anyone an enduring power of attorney, to assist with managing their affairs, or if they simply communicated to their carers that they wanted the heating left on...

wild666

It might be best to pay to have the heating changed to a Nest or Hive thermostat then the person can control it wherever they are. My local club is looking at having their smart thermostat removed as it is turning on at 06:00 to heat the club up for the evening, it's a big place but 06:00 to be up to temp. for 19:00 is a bit much. 

MWT

wild666 said:

It might be best to pay to have the heating changed to a Nest or Hive thermostat then the person can control it wherever they are.

Assuming that is what the son wishes of course.

wild666 said:

 My local club is looking at having their smart thermostat removed as it is turning on at 06:00 to heat the club up for the evening, it's a big place but 06:00 to be up to temp. for 19:00 is a bit much. 

You've mentioned this before and as per previous comments, that really is just a setting on the controls, no need to have it removed, just get it set correctly...

Brie

Perhaps you/your son need to change the carers?  We needed to do that with MiL as the first agency employed would send random individuals some of whom would just sit around watching tv instead of engaging with her.

Also - MiL who is very much not mobile wants the heat on as much as possible.  The rads are on a timer but she also has an electric fire in her lounge and that room gets absolutely stifling.  But our energy bills are no where near £400 a month (thankfully)

Robin9

Very similar to my late MIL  - she was bed bound so we ran heating 24hrs in her room, bathroom and kitchen but turned all the other rads off. Cost was not a consideration  -  her quality of life was.

How active is your son  ?

cansu1

He is not very active at the moment and the carers did say that he needed the heat on. However, he does not have the funds for this and neither do I. They also do not want me to manage what is going on there. He is completely non verbal and unable to say that he does or doesn't want it on. It really isn't a case of he can afford to do this if necessary. I am going to look into the hive option and I will have to program it to be on a set number of hours a day. I can't see how else to stop him getting further into debt. 

MWT

cansu1 said:

He is not very active at the moment and the carers did say that he needed the heat on. However, he does not have the funds for this and neither do I. They also do not want me to manage what is going on there. He is completely non verbal and unable to say that he does or doesn't want it on. It really isn't a case of he can afford to do this if necessary. I am going to look into the hive option and I will have to program it to be on a set number of hours a day. I can't see how else to stop him getting further into debt. 

Does he have an enduring power of attorney in place giving you the ability to make those decisions for him?

tim_p

Enduring power of attorney haven’t been a thing since before 2009 at least. They are now called ‘lasting power of attorney’ (LPA)

red_flump

wild666 said:

It might be best to pay to have the heating changed to a Nest or Hive thermostat then the person can control it wherever they are. My local club is looking at having their smart thermostat removed as it is turning on at 06:00 to heat the club up for the evening, it's a big place but 06:00 to be up to temp. for 19:00 is a bit much. 

It shouldn't need replacing - just turn off the function that aims to bring the place up to temp by 19:00.  In some circumstances (my 2-bed terrace) this option works well and just brings the heating on a bit earlier on cold days to hit the setpoint, but I know it's not for all setups.