What can I do if my heating is not working?

Ensuring that the Heating and Hot Water are working is your landlord’s responsibility. You should report it to them in writing, and expect a response within 24-48 hours if you have no heating/hot water and it is winter. If it is the warmer months, you can expect a response within 5 days, unless you have no hot water at all. Only Gas Safe engineers are legally allowed to carry out repairs to gas appliances so check that anyone sent to repair it are on this list.

If it is cold, your landlord should provide alternative heating if the repairs are likely to take any significant time, and they should cover the cost of this if it is expensive.

What can I do if my hot water is not working?

Ensuring that the Heating and Hot Water are working is your landlord’s responsibility. You should report it to them in writing, and expect a response within 24-48 hours if you have no heating/hot water and it is winter. If it is the warmer months, you can expect a response within 5 days, unless you have no hot water at all. Only Gas Safe engineers are legally allowed to carry out repairs to gas appliances so check that anyone sent to repair it are on this list.

Your landlord should ensure that you can heat water, for example with a kettle or water boiler. 

My Landlord is asking me to try to do things to my boiler, is this OK? 

If a boiler goes out because of a temporary supply issue, or a minor pressure issue, sometimes there is a reset procedure.  Additionally in very cold weather, sometimes the condensate pipe can freeze and can be helped by pouring warm (not hot water) on it to thaw it. The boiler pressure may also need to be topped up.

These are safe to do if there are instructions in the manual that says the householder may do this. But if you have any concerns you should ask for an engineer.  These also often indicate maintenance is needed, so it is best to ask for this to be checked.