Heating

This is often caused by air blocking the flow of hot water in the heating pipes to the radiators. You should report this to your local estate office as soon as possible.

If your heating is not working for more than 24 hours and you have reported it, your heating charges will be refunded for the period that you are without heat. If you are a tenant this will be refunded to your rent account. If you are a lessee this will be credited to your service charge account. This will contribute to the cost of temporary electric fan heaters that will be provided to you. Your local estate office may consider contributing to paying your electricity bill for the period the temporary electric heaters have to be installed.

If we experience cold weather in the summer months and if this weather is expected to be prolonged, we will consider turning the heating back on in consultation with the residents association or estate team. We use the summer period to carry out maintenance on communal heating systems and it can take some time to get the heating up and running. We are currently in the process of converting all our communal boilers to ‘Heating Management Systems’. This is a programme that enables us to remotely manage and control the communal boilers. This system works by fitting a temperature detector to the exterior of the building and this then feeds information of changing air temperatures to the control system which in turn varies the temperature of the heating accordingly. So, for example, on a warm autumn day the heating will turn off but on a cooler spring night the heating will turn on. We aim to convert all our communal boilers to this system.

Heating is provided for seven months of the year, however we spread the total cost of the heating over 12 months of the year so that the charge is more manageable for residents. Residents’ charges are based on the actual cost of running the heating system to which they are connected – it is not a standard Westminster-wide charge.

There is a replacement programme ongoing for all boilers that are more than 15 years old. You should contact your estate team and request that your boiler is inspected. If it is more than 15 years old and keeps breaking down then it is likely that we will replace it. All new boilers are A-rated condensing boilers which will help reduce energy consumption.

Following new government regulations in 2014/15, we have started a programme of installing meters to properties served by communal and district heating systems where possible. The installation of individual meters to properties has been incorporated into planned upgrades of the system, and these will continue to be rolled out across the city over the coming years.

From April 2017, we will start a trial of new heating and hot water statements issued to a small number of blocks where individual or block meters are now in place. We will then start to move residents over to a new individual billing system whereby you only pay for what you use. This will be fairer for all our residents and hopefully it will result in a reduction in energy waste.