Renting - Burst radiator pipe (can forsee problems with landlord)

faerie_girl

Hi everyone. Im here mainly for a rant but also maybe a bit of advice.

(Firstly we have an 'absentee landlord' who's company owns most of the houses/flats on the estate which i live. The council are currently taking them to court regarding the state of the properties.)

About 4/5 days ago we noticed the pressure gauge on the combi boiler was dropping down very quickly and we had to keep putting it back up. We were going to contact the agent/contractor/whateverthehellheis as we thought it just needed a new pressure valve.

We live in a 1st floor flat and have our own stairs. (The flat downstairs is used as storage for agent/contactor guy.)

We have both being in allday as it is our day off and have had the central heating on most of the day. The pressure went completely down twice.

When i went downstairs i noticed a drop of water coming from the ceiling and relised we may have a leak. We were gonna sort out the spare room (which has become full of stuff) and noticed the carpet was wet near the radiator. The pipes are not embedded into the wall but are in a wooden thing to hide them away. We pulled it apart and there was a huge puddle and the wood was soaked. All the water was turned off.

The agent finishes at 5 and the last time we had to get him out of hours he slamed a door in my face and this quite upset me. My dad came round and thought he might be to solder it but as the system was stilled filled with water so he couldn't fix it.

I went round to my very good neighbour whos has a lot of experience with the landlords and she phoned the agent/contractor. His responce was 'there is nothing i can do until till 9/10 in the morning. You will have to put some towels down'

The water is leaking from the radiator through the floor and down the wall on the stairs. our front door is directly beneath the radiator.

If the radiator has been leaking for the 4 days that the pressure has been dropping how much more water is is the walls/floor? The wall on the stairs (which is an exterior wall) is soaked. The plaster is probally saturated at there is water dripping down.

We don't have any radiators near stairs, and with it being winter and also the flat has 0 insulation it defineately wont dry by itself.

The agent/contractor should be coming tomorrow. I know that he probally wont bring a de-humidifier (i doubt he has one anyway). If he doesn't bring one and tells me i need to put the heating and that there is nothing he can do, can i insist that he does. There is no-way that it will dry out on its own. This is the coldest place in the flat. I think i can already see some tiny specks of mould.


Thanks if you got to the end. I needed to rant. If you could offer any advice thanks

SquatNow

For a start, turn off the feed to the rads and if possible, drain the system.

eco-friendly_2

About 4/5 days ago we noticed the pressure gauge on the combi boiler was dropping down very quickly and we had to keep putting it back up. We were going to contact the agent/contractor/whateverthehellheis as we thought it just needed a new pressure valve.

We live in a 1st floor flat and have our own stairs. (The flat downstairs is used as storage for agent/contactor guy.)

We have both being in allday as it is our day off and have had the central heating on most of the day. The pressure went completely down twice.

When i went downstairs i noticed a drop of water coming from the ceiling and relised we may have a leak. We were gonna sort out the spare room (which has become full of stuff) and noticed the carpet was wet near the radiator. The pipes are not embedded into the wall but are in a wooden thing to hide them away. We pulled it apart and there was a huge puddle and the wood was soaked. All the water was turned off.

The agent finishes at 5 and the last time we had to get him out of hours he slamed a door in my face and this quite upset me. My dad came round and thought he might be to solder it but as the system was stilled filled with water so he couldn't fix it.

I went round to my very good neighbour whos has a lot of experience with the landlords and she phoned the agent/contractor. His responce was 'there is nothing i can do until till 9/10 in the morning. You will have to put some towels down'

The water is leaking from the radiator through the floor and down the wall on the stairs. our front door is directly beneath the radiator.

If the radiator has been leaking for the 4 days that the pressure has been dropping how much more water is is the walls/floor? The wall on the stairs (which is an exterior wall) is soaked. The plaster is probally saturated at there is water dripping down.

We don't have any radiators near stairs, and with it being winter and also the flat has 0 insulation it defineately wont dry by itself.

The agent/contractor should be coming tomorrow. I know that he probally wont bring a de-humidifier (i doubt he has one anyway). If he doesn't bring one and tells me i need to put the heating and that there is nothing he can do, can i insist that he does. There is no-way that it will dry out on its own. This is the coldest place in the flat. I think i can already see some tiny specks of mould.


Thanks if you got to the end. I needed to rant. If you could offer any advice thanks

If you could find out where the LL lives maybe you could torch his/her house. OR

Kidnap the LL's children, from their school. OR

be patient and wait, FOR THE CONTRACTOR TO COME OUT. :rolleyes: and fix your leaky radiator.

faerie_girl

The contractor came this morning. Most of the water had left the system and was deposited at the bottom of the stairs. Nice little pond we had.
The problem is fixed. The contrator brought round a huge industrial heater which will be eating up our electric.

Over night the wall has grown nice bit mould.

eco-friendly wrote: »

If you could find out where the LL lives maybe you could torch his/her house. OR

Kidnap the LL's children, from their school. OR

be patient and wait, FOR THE CONTRACTOR TO COME OUT. :rolleyes: and fix your leaky radiator.

eco-friendly - the reason why i wanted to rant because the contractor lived straight across the road. When he came this morning he had to walk through a nice big puddle and a water fall coming down the door.

If the problem was sorted straighaway would'nt have had to sleep at a neighbours house because this place is so cold.

it is a good job we haven't got round to putting carpet on the stairs or they would have been wreaked.

do you think it is okay for the landlord, the managing agent and the contractor to be unobtainable after 5pm and also weekends?? because emergancys dont happen after 5pm. We are not allowed to call anyone out ourselves.

Well we can safely say that the walls are gonna be wreaked with damp and mold. using a heater is gonna make it worse. The walls are basically contrete with plaster on them. Whenever we have the heating on condensation collects on all the exterior walls.

Hopefully i can pursaude OH to move out of this crap hole. I don't want to have to wait until after the courtcase to get something done.

lets hope my OH doesn't breath in too many mould spores and dies.

Faerie

silvercar

do you think it is okay for the landlord, the managing agent and the contractor to be unobtainable after 5pm and also weekends?? because emergancys dont happen after 5pm. We are not allowed to call anyone out ourselves

I think its OK for a landlord to provide a similar speed of service that a home owner would get. Landlords don't have magic wands, they can't make plumbers appear in the middle of the night.

Any damage to the building will be a claim on the landlords insurance.

Although problems can appear bigger when they occur in your own home (i remember when our water tank started leaking through the hall ceiling!), The landlord does seem to have dealt with the problem the very next day, I don't think you can ask for more.

EliteHeat

faerie_girl wrote: »

The problem is fixed. The contrator brought round a huge industrial heater which will be eating up our electric.

Blimey! you sound like really, really, really hard work.

paintpot

It took you four days to discover the leak, they repair it the next day and bring you a heater to dry the wall, that's good service in my opinion. You could ask them to pay towards your electric bill for drying out the flat but other than that they have done all they can regarding this instance. Just because the engineer lived nearby it doesn't mean he is contracted to work 24 hours a day, it's just a coincidence that's where he lives. I also wouldn't advise you getting neighbours in to do work like solder pipes, if they make the matter worse then you would be liable for the damage caused.