How to Report a Repair

Repair Categories

When you report a repair, we will decide how urgent it is and will place it in one of the categories shown in the table below. This table also shows the type of work placed in each category and how soon the repair is likely to be carried out.

DURING SEVERE WEATHER CONDITIONS, THERE MAYBE EXCEPTIONAL DEMAND ON THE REPAIRS SERVICE. MANY OF THE ISSUES RELATE TO FROZEN CONDENSE PIPES COMING FROM BOILERS. YOU CAN FIND ADVICE AND HELP BY CLICKING ON THE 'FROZEN CONDENSE PIPES' LINK IN THE 'DOCUMENTS' SECTION OF THIS PAGE.

Category

Response Target

Type of incident/repair

(Emergency)

Respond and make safe and/or carry out temporary repairs within 2 hours of report

(follow-up works may then need to be raised on lower priorities)

This response priority is reserved for incidents that require an immediate response to either prevent danger to life or extensive damage to the property, if the incident/problem will have a serious and unavoidable adverse effect on someone’s medical needs or personal health and/or safety or if there is an infant under 1 year old living in the property.

(“unavoidable” - we deem it reasonable to expect a tenant and/or their dependents to put on additional layers of clothing to keep warm in winter and therefore loss of heating would normally be a “next day “ response - i.e. not an emergency )

If it is found that the call is not actually an emergency, or if any resident abuses this service priority - then the resident will be re-charged any extra-over costs/charges associated with this priority (eg. for an out-of-office-hours call this will be £ 105 )

(Urgent)

Next day

within 5 working days

(see table below)

These repairs require reasonably urgent attention to prevent residents from experiencing significant inconvenience, risks to health and safety or further damage to their home or property.

(Routine)

Within 12 working days

These include minor repairs which are not deemed an emergency nor urgent.

(Low routine)

Within 30 working days

Low priority repairs.

(Planned)

Planned Maintenance

Low priority repairs that can be added to existing cyclic/planned programmes.

Expected Repairs Response Targets.
Trade	Repair	Response Category	Response Timescale.
Drainage/Sewers	Blocked sewers	Emergency	Now
Plumbing	Burst water pipes	Emergency	Now
	Loss of regular water supply	Urgent	Next day
	Loss of hot water supply (1st November - 30th April)	Urgent	Next day
	Loss of hot water supply (1st May - 31st October)	Urgent	Within 3 working days
	Total failure of central heating (1st Nov – 30th April)	Urgent	Next day
	Total failure of central heating (1st May – 31st October)	Urgent	Within 3 working days
	Radiators - majority (>60%) not getting hot ( 1^st Nov - 30^th April)	Urgent	Next day
	Radiators - >1 but < 60% not getting hot (1^st Nov - 30^th April)	Urgent	Within 3 working days
	Radiators - single not getting hot (1^st Nov - 30^th April)	Routine	To suit tenant
	Radiators - any number not getting hot 1^st May - 31st Oct	Routine	To suit tenant
	Running or broken overflows (in freezing conditions)	Urgent	Next day
	Running or broken overflows (in non-freezing conditions)	Routine	To suit tenant
	Replacement of broken WC pans, where there is only one WC	Urgent	Next day
	Replacement of broken WC pans, where there is more than one WC	Urgent	To be arranged with a mutually convenient appointment date within 5 working days
	Restore flush to WC where tenant is unable to flush with a bucket of water	Urgent	Next day
	Uncontainable leaks	Emergency	Now
	Containable leaks	Urgent	To be arranged with a mutually convenient appointment date within 5 working days
	Replacement Tap washers	Routine	Low priority works - To be arranged with a mutually convenient appointment date within 12 working days
Electrician	Total Loss of Electricity	Urgent	Next day
	Defective light fittings to kitchens, bathroom or stairways (does not include faulty lamps)	Urgent	Next day
	General Electrical repairs (not specified above)	Urgent	To be arranged with a mutually convenient appointment date within 5 days
Carpenter	Defective External Property Door locks	Urgent	Next day
	Board up or re-glaze for security reasons	Emergency	Now
	Glazing replacements (after boarding up)	Urgent	To be arranged with a mutually convenient appointment date within 5 working days
	Rain penetration to doors/windows	Urgent	To be arranged with a mutually convenient appointment date within 5 working days
	Loose floorboards	Urgent	To be arranged with a mutually convenient appointment date within 3 working days
	Garage Doors	Routine	Low priority works - To be arranged with a mutually convenient appointment date within 12 working days
General Building	Dangerous roof slates/chimneys (make safe only)	Emergency	Now
	Roof leaks	Urgent	Next day
	Replacement chimney pots	Routine	Low priority works - To be arranged with a mutually convenient appointment date within 12 working days
Other low priority repairs to be completed within 30 working days.

Please Note:

Calls where radiators are not getting hot should not normally be attended to as an emergency.

The guidance for responding to this type of reports where radiators are not getting hot is as follows:

Radiator quantities	Response Category
Majority of radiators (>60%)	B - 24hrs (weekday response)
More than one radiator, but not the majority (<60%)	C - 5 day response
Single radiator	D- 12 day response

Out of hours repairs
The out of hours service operates:
- From 5.00pm to 8.30am, Monday to Thursday, Friday 4.30pm – 8.30am Monday
- Weekends
- On Bank Holidays
The purpose of our out of hours emergency repairs service is to provide an emergency call out service when the Customer Service Centre is closed.

It is expensive to organise tradesmen out of hours, so it is important that you only request a call out for a genuine emergency. We define an emergency as danger to life or limb, where there is a serious risk to health or where there is risk of considerable damage to the property, for example, if a water leak causes a ceiling to collapse. In exceptional circumstances, we may also regard a repair as an emergency if it causes undue anxiety or stress or would cause significant inconvenience over a prolonged period. The Council aims to respond and make safe wherever possible within two hours.

We do not tolerate verbal abuse towards our staff, so if you are abusive to our call out officer we will not treat your call as an emergency.

The emergency call out officers may use their discretion, based on the nature of the call or where the tenant is disabled, a pensioner or has a young baby in the property. The emergency system should not be used by tenants to ‘short circuit’ the normal repair priorities.

We will charge you for the emergency call out if the contractor informs us that it was not a genuine emergency. You may be depriving another person with a genuine emergency if you abuse the system.

Gas leaks

Please note that gas leaks or suspicion of fumes from a gas appliance should be reported direct to Southern Gas Networks on 0800 111 999.
The Housing Quality Standard (HQS)

THE HOUSING QUALITY STANDARD (HQS) is designed to ensure that you are provided with a Decent Home that is maintained in good condition. Winchester City Council has set out to meet and improve upon the Government’s Decent Homes standard.
Our commitment to you

We undertake to maintain your home in a safe and reasonably weather-tight condition and, wherever possible, to provide modern facilities over and above those required by the Government’s Decent Homes standard.

We will:

• Externally inspect your home every 5 years as part of our ongoing stock survey plans
• Ensure your home benefits from a modern kitchen (less than 20 years old)
• Provide you with an efficient and effective heating & hot water system
• Insulate your home to make it more affordable for you to keep warm
• Maintain a safe and secure environment

We will always try to let you know our future plans for your home and make sure you can access this information easily and will always inform you when work is due to start.
Who is Responsible
Although the Housing Quality Standard sets out requirements for service standards, you too have certain obligations. Some repairs are your responsibility and you may be liable to pay for them if we have to complete them on your behalf. We will let you know when this is the case. We have included some of the main ones here.

We will not repair or replace your own structures, fixtures or fittings. The following list gives an idea of some items for which you are responsible:
- Replacing lost keys
- Gaining entry if accidentally locked out
- Replacing light bulbs and florescent tubes
- Appliances, plugs and their fuses
- Broken glass to windows and doors
- TV aerials where not on a communal Council maintained system
- Installation and maintenance of your own appliances. This includes connection of gas and electric cookers, which must be fitted by an appropriately registered installer. A completion certificate for the work must be forwarded to us within one week.

Tenants Handbook

Last Updated: Sunday 15 December 2024

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How to Report a Repair

Gas leaks

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