There is no hot water, where can I complain to correct the situation?

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Published: 09/05/2018

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In Russia, there are two documents that regulate the supply of hot and cold water. These are Federal Law No. 416-FZ of December 7, 2011 “On water supply and sanitation” and Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 354 of May 6, 2011 “On the provision of utility services to owners and users of premises in apartment buildings and residential buildings.”

• Grounds for filing a complaint about lack of water to the Management Company or Vodokanal
• To the housing inspection and Rospotrebnadzor
• To the Municipal Administration
• To the Prosecutor's Office
• To court

Based on these regulations, hot water must be supplied around the clock, regardless of the time of year. In some cases, a temporary lack of water is allowed:

• over the course of a month, hot water may be unavailable for 8 hours (this figure is the total amount; the law allows a one-time shutdown for no more than 4 hours);
• in the event of an accident on the main line, the absence of water for 24 hours is allowed;
• during repair and maintenance work, the duration of the break is established by SanPin standards ; this break cannot be more than two weeks.

If the water temperature is below +40 degrees, it should be paid for as cold. However, this fact will need to be recorded.

When there may be no water

The first appendix to the said resolution and SNiP 2.04.02-84, SanPin 2.1.4.2496-09 provide for the circumstances of the legal absence of water:

For cold water, the shutdown standards are:

• Up to eight hours per month (total time);
• Up to four hours at a time (in case of an emergency central network emergency).

For hot water:

• Up to eight hours throughout the month (total);
• Up to four hours at a time;
• 24 hours (in case of an emergency on a dead-end branch);
• You can turn off hot water for 2 weeks during routine inspection and repairs. Such work is carried out once a year in the summer.

To drain water:

• Up to eight hours per month;
• Up to four hours at a time (in case of an accident).

Where to go?

Before you complain anywhere, please note that planned work can be carried out within one to two weeks . There is no point in doing anything during this period. All you can do is find out when water is expected to be available.

ATTENTION! If you are in the mood to complain, then you need to take into account that you can somehow react to the situation only if the repair time is clearly delayed. In such a situation, you can file a corresponding complaint with the management company, as well as with Rospotrebnadzor and the prosecutor's office.

If heating and hot water were cut off due to a network failure, then you also need to clarify how quickly it will be repaired. Housing and communal services or management company employees can report this . They will give you the information you need as they are the ones responsible for providing such services.

Some people think that there is no need to call and worry, this is not entirely true. Even if your neighbors have already reported problems in their house in Yekaterinburg, you should also do the same. The more complaints the manager receives, the faster she will take action and recalculate .

Should they warn?

In the event of a planned shutdown of hot and cold water, residents of the house should know in advance. Vodokanal employees can block access to water if:

• Arrears of payment for services provided for six months. You can prevent such a disconnection by drawing up an agreement with the water utility on the phased payment of debt. But the debt must be repaid strictly according to schedule, otherwise the organization has the right to stop supplying water. This rule applies exclusively to hot water supply. Blocking access to cold water supply is prohibited by Government Decree No. 307 of May 23, 2006 “On the procedure for providing public services to citizens”;
• Willful connection to an internal pipeline;
• Availability of instructions from government institutions or local authorities;
• Emergency condition of internal water systems due to the fault of the home owner.

If pipes “leak,” the water is urgently turned off throughout the entire “riser” to prevent flooding of other residents of the high-rise building.
This is an exceptional situation. If water supply is interrupted for other reasons, residents must learn about the date of disconnection, its period and reasons from the management company thirty days in advance. A water utility can stop supplying cold water without warning only under two conditions:

• Threat of damage to communications or system breakdown;
• Emergency situation.

Reasons for turning off water supply

According to the law, every tenant who regularly pays utilities has every right to count on an uninterrupted supply of water to their apartment or house. But since any engineering systems (especially old ones) require repair and periodic maintenance, services are required to block access to it from time to time.

1. Cold water can be turned off for a maximum of 8 hours every month. The duration of a one-time deprivation of water supply is also specified: it is no more than 4 hours.
2. Similar standards apply to hot water supply, however, in cases of an accident on a dead-end main, the utility service is given 24 hours to eliminate its consequences (DHW, cold water supply).
3. Everyone is used to turning off hot water in the summer season. At this time, preventive or repair work is carried out. The maximum duration of a planned outage is 2 weeks.

Sometimes (and everywhere) force majeure occurs. To a greater extent, this applies to main pipelines that were laid during the Soviet era. Therefore, repair work with “antediluvian” systems often takes longer than planned. Such “slowness” is often perceived by residents as a reluctance of services to carry out their duties. This does not always correspond to reality.

However, a line failure is not the only reason. The resource supplying organization has every right to suspend water supply in several situations. This may happen:

• if the sanitary and epidemiological service has detected a deterioration in the quality of the liquid: in this case, the supply will be restored only after all violations have been eliminated;
• when unacceptable substances were discharged into the system - acids, alkalis, kerosene, gasoline, radioactive components;
• if the organization responsible for drainage cannot access sewer wells;
• when employees of the supplier organization mistakenly turned off the wrong apartment.

Shutting off water can provoke illegal connection to water supply networks. In this case, the Management Company is responsible for this incident. It’s not news to anyone that hot water supply is being cut off for those residents who have large debts. It must exceed the six-month standard. However, “willful defaulters” are warned in writing at least a month in advance. An option to solve the problem is debt restructuring (installment plan), but debtor owners need to know that when repaying it, they cannot violate the schedule one iota. Otherwise, the riser will be blocked in the apartment or welded shut.

If the owners prevent the organization’s employees from accessing the housing, then a plug will be installed in the basement. Its installation and dismantling will also be paid by the debtor. These “educational measures” apply only to hot water supply. The supplying organization has no right to deprive the owner who has a debt of cold water.

Hot water supply: concept and requirements

The absence of hot water for several hours or a whole day in the summer has long become the norm in new and old high-rise buildings. Many people take for granted the absence of water for more than 14 days or lukewarm water from a hot tap.

According to the standards, hot water supply provides the client with uninterrupted access to hot water supplied through a centralized pipeline, of established quality and in the appropriate volume, all day long

Government Decree No. 354, regulating the activities of public utilities, sets clear requirements for the quality of service:

• Twenty-four hour water supply throughout the year;
• Deviation from temperature norms at night (24.00-5.00) up to five degrees, during the day (5.00-24.00) up to three degrees;
• Supply of water whose quality complies with SanPiN;
• Providing water supply under pressure established by SNIP.

Planned or emergency work

Hot water pipelines are constantly under heavy load, so heating networks are forced to carry out scheduled maintenance work. They are usually carried out before the start of the heating season and at its end. Such work is usually notified in advance; a notice should be posted at the entrances of houses indicating the schedule for water shutdowns and the reason why there is no water.

If the hot water supply is turned off suddenly, it may be due to an accident. In this case you can call the emergency service , give your detailed address and personal information.

The dispatcher is also required to introduce himself and state the reason for the shutdown if work is underway to eliminate the accident. He must also report the cause of the accident and when the work is planned to be completed and when hot water supply will be resumed in the apartments at this address.

If the dispatcher cannot give accurate information, there is no answer to the question asked, then you can call the Housing Inspectorate or water utility.

Who can help

Faced with the fact that the tap produces only a hissing sound, a natural question arises: for how long the water was turned off, who is to blame and where to complain. Supervision over the activities of the management company in accordance with Articles 13 and 20 of the Housing Code and paragraph 124 of Order No. 170 is carried out by state institutions and local authorities within the limits of their powers. Therefore, a complaint about the lack of hot water supply can be submitted to:

• District administration;
• Housing and Communal Services Department;
• Housing Inspectorate;
• Rospotrebnadzor;
• Local prosecutor's office.

Should consumers be warned about water shutoffs?

• Yes, definitely. Hot water can be turned off to an individual subscriber if his debt has exceeded six months - then a debt restructuring agreement should be drawn up and strictly followed.
• If obligations are not fulfilled, utility services shut off or weld the pipes in the apartment. If the owner does not allow housing office representatives into the premises, a plug is placed in the basement, and the debtor will have to pay for both the installation and removal of this plug.

Should they warn?

As for cold water, it is prohibited to turn it off for non-payment, which is provided for by the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation, since in this case the apartment cannot be considered suitable for living.

• In the event of a rush of water, the entire riser of a multi-storey building is turned off - this refers to emergency situations, and in such cases the shutdown is carried out without warning, just as if there is a threat to the normal operation of the water supply system of the entire house.
• In all other cases, warning about the planned shutdown is given a month in advance.

Who is responsible for poor quality services?

Before talking about the responsibility of officials, it is worth figuring out whether the water could have been turned off legally (perhaps there was an announcement, but you just didn’t notice it) and for how long.

If, after considering the application, it is determined that the water was turned off illegally or the period of non-provision of services has been exceeded, then you will have to answer:

1. Management company servicing apartment buildings. It is she who is responsible for organizing public services for the high-rise building. If the company refers to debt, then such “evasion” is illegal. The procedure for providing communal services prohibits disconnecting a client who has fulfilled his obligations from the water supply. That is, if two or three apartments do not pay, you cannot turn off the water to the entire high-rise building;
2. If the residents of an apartment building have created a cooperative or an Owners Association, then the governing bodies are responsible for water supply. Utility companies refer to the debt of the HOA as the subscriber with whom the agreement has been drawn up. However, the Resolution of the Presidium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation dated 03/07/2007 interprets the HOA as an intermediary, and not an end user. Therefore, the above-mentioned Procedure applies, according to which bona fide clients cannot be disconnected from services;
3. When signing an agreement with a service company directly (Article 164 of the Housing Code), the culprit will be the company with which the agreement was signed.

Recalculation of water charges

The period when citizens did not receive warm water must be recorded so that the management company recalculates payments, since during this time the client did not receive services. To do this you will need to do the following:

1. Call the water utility, where an employee must record the appeal, write down the caller’s initials, house address, contact number and assign a registration type number to the complaint.
2. Write a statement to the management organization about the need for a new payment for a service not provided.
3. The organization's dispatcher must explain why the water was turned off. If this does not happen, then water utility employees must visit your home within 2 hours and record all violations and problems.

After this algorithm of actions, the management company must recalculate the payment receipts. For every hour there is no warm water, the cost of the tariff decreases by 0.15 percent. If the duration of the outage did not exceed the norm specified in the law, no recalculation is carried out.

The management company recalculates the cost of housing services only if there is no measuring device in the house. If residents have acquired it, payment is made in accordance with its indications.

Sample complaint about lack of hot water supply:

Head of the Housing and Communal Services Department of Samara

From Nikolai Pavlovich Petrushov, 1972

the year of birth,

residence Samara, Baltiyskaya street, building 5, kV.143,

phone XXXXXXXXXXX

COMPLAINT

As the owner of apartment No. 143 on Baltiyskaya Street in the city of Samara, I entered into an agreement with the manager regarding the maintenance of the apartment building and the provision of communal services. I make all payments under the contract on time, however, Management Company “Our House”, in violation of the provisions of Article 4 of the federal law “On the Protection of Consumer Rights,” does not fulfill the terms of the contract, namely, since July 3, 2021, I have no hot water.

There were no announcements about maintenance work. After contacting a representative of the management company, I learned that the water was turned off due to a broken pipe. They promised to complete the restoration work in two days. However, water did not appear on time as promised. When contacting again, the engineer of the management company Fedorchuk V.M. explained that a complete replacement of the pipe was required.

Based on the provisions of the Rules for the provision of utility services to citizens No. 307, the Rules for the maintenance of common property of the MKD No. 491, Articles 2 and 162 of the Housing Code of the Russian Federation, such restoration work must be carried out by the management company within a month.

However, as of August 5, 2021, there is still no hot water. In response to questions from residents, representatives of the management company “Our House” answer that they are temporarily unable to purchase a pipe, since the supplier is raising prices.

Based on the stated facts and current legislation, I ask for your assistance in carrying out restoration work, recalculating payments for hot water, as well as compensation for moral damage in the amount of 5,000 (five thousand) rubles from the Management Company “Our House”.

What to do and where to call if hot and cold water is turned off without warning

The management company receives a lot of negative comments when the hot water in an apartment building is cut off and there is not even warm water. Where to go if there is no hot water? In this option, you need to make a call to the HOA or management company to find out the reasons for the disconnection.

If the water is shut off without warning, residents want to know where to turn. You can find out the reasons and timing for resumption of water supply on the management company’s website or by calling. Housing office employees or representatives of the HOA can often give a competent answer.

The norm is considered to be a temperature of 50 to 70 degrees, otherwise you need to insist on drawing up a report. Even if employees refuse to sign the paper, try to achieve the desired result . One copy should remain in your hands.

It can be immediately noted that the legislation strictly regulates these issues. Even if there is an urgent need to disconnect, services must warn citizens . According to the rules, the manager or other responsible organization must warn in advance about the work.