Reporting a repair
If possible, you should report repairs to the repairs hotline.
Your questions answered
Who do I contact about repairs?
The best way is to phone the repairs hotline. We can then discuss the problem with you direct.
You are also welcome to visit us, write to us or e-mail us. See Contacting us.
What if it is an emergency?
It depends when you have the emergency. During normal working hours, phone the repairs hotline in the usual way. If it is outside normal working hours, you should ring the special out-of-hours number. Both phone numbers are given in Contacting us. Please be sure that we would agree that it is an emergency rather than an urgent repair. If you call out the emergency repair service and your repair is not an emergency, we may charge you for the extra costs. See Repairs standards.
When will the work be done?
When you report a repair we will put it into a response time category. This decides how soon we will start the work. See Repairs standards.
We will carry out most repair work during our normal working hours. See Contacting us.
Unless it is an emergency, we will agree a day when we will do the work. This will be for a specific morning or afternoon. If a repair worker contacts you because he is in your area and can do your repair earlier than agreed, please only agree to the change if it is convenient for you.
What if no-one is in when you have arranged an appointment time with me?
It is important that this does not happen. If you know beforehand that you will not be able to keep to the specific morning or afternoon appointment we have agreed with you, please let us know as soon as possible and we will agree another date. Broken appointments waste time and money.
If no-one is in the repair worker will leave a calling card. You must call us immediately to make another appointment. If you do not contact us, we may cancel the job.
Before you contact us
- Look up your repair problem on the relevant page of this book.
- Note down the information you need to give us.
When you call
Let us know:
- your name, address and phone number;
- if you are hard of hearing or may take time getting to the door when someone calls;
- if you have a special need we should take into account, such as a medical condition or cultural need (for example that we do not carry out work on a religious holiday); and
- the details of the item that needs repairing or replacing.
The repair is recorded
- We will record the details you have given us.
- We will assess how soon we can carry out the repair.
- We will place an order immediately or we will arrange for a surveyor to visit your home to look at what needs to be done.
Arranging a repair
- If it is an emergency, we will let you know how soon the repair worker will come.
- For most other repairs, we will make an appointment for a specific day for the morning (8am to 1pm) or the afternoon (1pm to 5pm).
- We will send you a repair acknowledgement through the post. This will
tell you:
- the job number for the repair;
- details of the work that will be done;
- the target date by which the repair should be carried out; and
- any appointment date agreed with you.
Work is carried out
The repair worker will come to your home to carry out the work. If you are not at home, he or she will leave a card with a phone number for you to ring to arrange a new appointment.
Satisfaction survey
After the work has been completed, please let us know what you think about our service. You can do this by filling in and returning the feedback card that we sent with your repair acknowledgement. The return postage has already been paid.
Win a prize! If you return your feedback card to us, your name will go into our monthly draw. You could win £50 worth of shopping vouchers.
Quality inspections
A member of staff may contact you to ask you about a recent repair or to arrange to carry out a quality check on the work that has been done in your home. See Our service.
