Where to complain about the lack of heating in the apartment

Warmth in the house is one of the main conditions for normal, healthy living in it. Therefore, all apartments are connected to a centralized heating system that operates for a certain season, or they have their own autonomous heating system.

The second option is a guarantee that you can always create the necessary warm atmosphere in your home and heat the room to a comfortable temperature.

Consumers connected to district heating are dependent on how well and consistently this utility service will be provided by a responsible organization.

And if the radiators heat the apartment poorly, and in some rooms they are even cold, you have to find out the reasons for this discomfort and the low quality of the services of the heat supplier.

Occasionally, barely warm radiators are the result of an accident on the line; more often, the problem is in the pipeline itself or poor operation of the boiler room. When batteries run poorly, where can you complain? It is important to know the answer to the question, because in winter, staying without a normal room temperature is dangerous to your health.

What the law says

Let's figure out what parameters the heating in the apartment should meet.

Regulatory Requirements

According to the Rules for the provision of public utilities, the heating period must begin if for 5 consecutive days the average daily air temperature outside is less than 8 °C.

At the same time, the air temperature in residential premises should be within 18-24 °C. At night (from 0.00 to 5.00 hours) the temperature is allowed to decrease below the minimum set values ​​by 3 °C.

The maximum permissible deviations from this standard have also been established:

If there are violations of these values, the owner of the premises has the right to demand a reduction in the utility fee by 0.15% for each hour of exceeding the permissible duration of the heating interruption.

Who is responsible

Depending on where the cause of the heating outages occurred, responsibility for cold batteries will be borne by:

• owner - within his apartment. So, if you installed weak batteries or the windows in the apartment let out heat, no one but you will be held responsible;
• Housing office (UK, HOA) - outside the apartment, but within the communal networks of the house;
• resource supply organization - outside the home.

Let's deflate

In cases where the riser corresponds to the thermal regime, but the battery does not, then the residents themselves remove the accumulation of air, for which they use a Mayevsky tap on the batteries.

Before opening the valve, you must first turn off the heat supply and place rags under the radiator, because dirty water will come out along with the air. The tap is opened using a screwdriver, which is inserted into a special recess.

When the accumulated air is released from the hole, it will come out with a certain sound. After the air leaves the battery, dirty water should appear from the hole. After this, the tap can be closed. After this procedure, heat supply is restored in full.

Please note! A tap is installed on each heating device, but you should not be zealous, so a similar procedure is carried out only with those devices that are cold. Please note that the tap may have to be opened more than once.

This procedure becomes more difficult if the air accumulation is not in indoor radiators, but in pipes located in the basement. You carry out the procedure described above, and the batteries are cold, then you should call a plumber from the management company, who will open the valve and release the air, which prevents heat from flowing through the batteries.

What to do if it's cold at home

If you are freezing at home, you need to act in the following order:

1. Record the low temperature in the living room. To do this, you need to call the emergency dispatch service of the management company or homeowners association and report the problem. Utility service employees are required to come and verify such a complaint within 2 hours of its receipt. After measuring temperatures, an act on the provision of heat supply services of inadequate quality is drawn up. It is from the time recorded in this act that the time of disruption of the heating supply will be counted. If no one from the management company comes to the call, you can call the neighbors and the person in charge to record the temperature and draw up a report. It is important to follow the rules for measuring temperatures: close all windows before measuring, measure the temperature in the middle of a large room, a meter from the floor. You can also try contacting the emergency dispatch service at the GZHI.
2. Find out who is responsible for the lack of heating. The management company should have such information. If the problem lies in the improper condition of the heating networks of the house, it must be eliminated by the management company. If an accident occurs in heating networks outside the home, you need to call your resource supply organization. When making a call, it is better to turn on the audio recording of the conversation. If the reason for the lack of heating is an accident in the heating networks, you must be told about this, and also be given a time frame for eliminating the problem.
3. Where to go if there is still no heating.
   In this case, you need to complain to the competent government agencies:
   • to the housing inspection;

   to the municipal administration;

4. to Rospotrebnadzor;
5. to the Federal Antimonopoly Service;
6. to the Prosecutor's Office.

We will tell you more about how to make a complaint and send it to the specified structures below.

How and where to complain about the management company or housing and communal services? Step-by-step instruction

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Where to go for heating in an apartment

Let's consider how and where you can contact us regarding the lack of heating in your apartment.

Solving the heating problem does not require delay, so we advise you to contact all possible authorities immediately in order to achieve the fastest response from the authorities. Publicity in the media will also help speed up the solution to the problem.

Where to complain about the lack of heating in Moscow

For Muscovites, the same procedure for filing complaints about poor-quality utility services applies as in other regions. Let's look at which authorities in the capital accept complaints about heating, as well as what services exist for filing complaints:

• Department of Housing and Communal Services of Moscow. You can promptly report a heating problem by calling: +. You can also write to the department through the electronic reception desk.
• PJSC "MOEK" is an energy company that supplies heat to Moscow residents. The organization's emergency dispatch service can be contacted by phone: +.
• Moszhilinspektsiya. You can file a complaint about poor-quality utility services to the territorial division of your district or through the electronic reception.
• Through the Moscow State Services mobile application.
• On the portal "Our City".

How to file a complaint

In order for a complaint to be considered and accepted for verification, it must be compiled correctly.
Heating problems, as a rule, arise not in one apartment, but in the entire house or even a residential complex. Therefore, it is better to file a collective complaint about heating, which has greater weight in consideration. We have already written about how to correctly draw up a collective complaint here.

The law establishes the following requirements for written applications to government agencies:

• the name of the authority to which the complaint is being sent must be indicated;
• The full name and return address of the applicant (postal or electronic) must be indicated: anonymous complaints are not considered by the authorities;
• the essence of the complaint is stated in clear language, with justification and evidence. In particular, it is better to provide the following information:
• address of a residential premises in which there is no heating;
• date of heating limitation or shutdown;
• when the applicant contacted the emergency dispatch service, was a report drawn up;
• who services heating networks and supplies heat;
• where else did the applicant apply;
• what rules of law were violated;
• The applicant must personally sign and date it.

All documents referred to by the applicant in the text are attached to the complaint:

• act on measuring temperatures in residential premises;
• copies of claims, complaints and other appeals on this issue, as well as responses to them.

Sample complaint

The neighbors are to blame

In some cases, neighbors make changes to the design of the intra-house heating system, adding comfort to themselves, increasing the sections on the radiator or increasing the number of radiators. Thus, the coolant fills the area of ​​the heating device, making it impossible to heat the next apartment. And then, as it travels through the system, the water cools. The result is that the battery in your living space is cold.

To get rid of this situation, you can also add an additional radiator, but this will only lead to the heating device cooling faster, so to establish justice, you should contact the management company.

How to get money back for bad heating

If during the heating season the temperature in the room does not meet the established standards, the owner of the premises has the right to demand a reduction in the payment for the current period by 0.15% for each hour of absence of normal heating. In other words, in this case you can demand recalculation for heating. This right can be exercised only after a violation has been detected.

For example, if the heating was turned off on October 1, and the temperature measurement report was drawn up only on October 3, the right to recalculate the cost of heating arises only from October 3.

It would seem that 0.15% is very little. But this is not so: let's look at it with an example.

Let's say the heating season began on October 1, and the heating was turned on only on October 21, i.e. The delay in providing the service was 20 days. The fee reduction is calculated for each hour of delay, i.e. for a day without heating, the fee should be reduced by:

0.15% x 24 = 3.6%.

Thus, for 20 days of delay, the payment for October should be reduced by 3.6% x 20 = 72%. Those. in fact, the heat energy consumer does not have to pay for the period when the heating service was provided improperly.

The heat supplier is required to make the recalculation. If he refuses to do this voluntarily, he will have to go to court.

Grounds for appeal

The reason for contacting regulatory authorities may be one of the following:

• The heating season has already started, but the radiators are still cold;
• The heating was suddenly turned off and was not connected for a long time;
• There is heating, but it is too weak;

Information

By law, during the operation of heating systems, the room temperature should not be lower than eighteen degrees.

• The heating is unstable, the radiators are either hot, then warm, or completely cold.

Do I need to sue utility companies because of poor heating?

You need to go to court when utility workers voluntarily do not comply with the requirements of the owner of the residential premises. So, in a statement of claim you can demand:

• restore heating to the required volume;
• compensate for damage caused to residential premises. For example, due to prolonged low temperatures, fungus appeared on the walls of the apartment, which required repairs;
• a fine for failure to comply with consumer requirements in the amount of 50% of the amount satisfied by the court;
• compensation for moral damage.

A statement of claim can be drawn up and filed in order to protect consumer rights. You can read about how to do this here.

Arbitrage practice

1. The court did not satisfy the request for recalculation of heating fees, since the plaintiff did not provide temperature measurements in the residential premises. But since the defendant did not comply with the plaintiff’s demands to restore heating in a pre-trial manner, compensation for moral damage and a consumer fine were awarded in favor of the plaintiff (Decision No. 2-1285 of July 16, 2020 in case No. 2-1285/2019).
2. The resource supplying organization was obliged to recalculate heating costs, since the temperature in the living space was below normal. At the same time, compensation for moral damage of 30,000 rubles and a consumer fine of 15,000 rubles were awarded in favor of the owner of the premises (Decision No. 2-1935/2019 of July 6, 2020 in case No. 2-1935/2019).
3. If residents draw up acts on low temperatures on their own, they must be signed by the chairman of the house. The court considered acts signed only by the residents of the house to be unacceptable evidence (Decision No. 2-436/2020 of September 28, 2021 in case No. 2-94/2020).

Act and examination

applications to the Criminal Code to measure the temperature in the apartment for free in word format

Before starting to file a complaint, you must make sure that the room temperature does not meet the basic criteria established for apartment premises. These violations can be recorded in two ways.

The first invitation of experts from the management company or measuring the temperature in the presence of several residents of your house and the chairman of the apartment building.

The last case falls under the category of legal if the specialist did not show up at the house 2 hours after submitting the application.

An additional examination may be appointed if there is a discrepancy in opinion between the homeowner and the members of the expert commission regarding the analysis of the room temperature and the inspection results.

It can be carried out at absolutely any time at the primary request of the owner of the living space or the executing agent. However, payment recalculation is possible only once every 365 days.

Appointment of a re-examination is necessary not only to determine the recalculation of the amounts of housing and communal services, but also to file a complaint with the service provider.

ATTENTION! Look at the completed sample application to the Criminal Code for measuring the temperature in the apartment:

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