Repairs and Maintenance

• How to report a repair
• Emergencies
• How long repairs take
• After you report your repair
• What to do if you are not satisfied
• Access to your home
• Gas safety checks
• If you smell gas
• Carbon monoxide poisoning

Don't let a Problem Get Worse! The Maintenance service is one of the most important services we provide. You must report any repairs needed to your home. This is a requirement of your tenancy.

If you notice a fault, please report it to us a soon as possible. Sometimes, a problem will get worse if left unattended and cause more serious damage. This may result in additional inconvenience to you and a higher repair cost than if the repair had been made when first noticed.

* Tenants in Sheltered and Supported Accommodation units
   can also report a repair using the warden call system.

How to Report a Repair

Repairs can be reported in the following ways.

Letter, Telephone or Fax

You can write to the Association at:
Craigievar House
77 Craigmount Brae
Edinburgh
EH12 8XF

Or telephone the Customer Service Team on 08457 125 865 during office hours - Monday to Friday, 9am - 5pm. This telephone number is charged at local rates, so you will only pay local call charges irrespective of where you live.

Or send a fax to our Customer Service Team on 0131 317 0155

E-mail or Online Form

You can report your repair to us at feedback@mbha.org.uk

>> or fill in our online repairs request form

Sheltered and Supported Schemes

You can report repairs to your Sheltered Housing Officer or any staff member on duty.

Emergencies

An emergency repair is restricted to circumstances where there is danger to life, a safety hazard or the potential for more extensive damage to property.

We aim to have emergency repairs attended to within four hours. The priority for our contractors is to make the hazard safe. In some circumstances our contractors will be able to complete the repair during the emergency call. However, follow-up work will often be required and this will be issued as an urgent, essential or routine repair, depending upon the particular circumstances.

Examples of emergency repairs are:

• toilet blocked and overflowing
• severe leakage of water from pipes or sanitary fittings
• serious roof leak
• electrical faults which are dangerous
• no electricity (where the electricity supply is not cut off by the supplier)
• gas leaks or no gas (where the gas supply is not cut off by the supplier)
• no water (where the water supply is not cut off by the supplier)
• security (for example, where an external door will not lock)

If you report an emergency repair you must stay in until a contractor has visited you.

How Long Repairs Take

When a repair is reported to Customer Services, we have to consider the nature of the work and how quickly it needs to be attended. Our contractors then have to make arrangements to have their staff available to carry out the work within the required timescale.

We have different categories of repairs to allow day-to-day work to be dealt with in a timescale suitable for the nature of the particular repair.

The categories of repairs and present target timescales we aim to achieve are:

Response Times

Emergency - 4 hours to make safe Urgent - 3 working days Essential - 10 working days Routine - 20 working days

After you report your repair?

When you report a repair to us, our staff will advise you whether this will be issued directly to the contractor or whether a Technical Officer needs to visit to assess the extent of the work. When we know what is involved, we will contact the contractor, tell them what work is required and instruct them to proceed with the repair.

The contractor will visit your home to carry out the repair. In many cases, the contractor will have to measure up the work to allow the correct materials to be purchased.

We have a list of approved contractors. Please remember, bogus tradespeople are a security problem. You should always ask workpeople for identification and check it carefully before letting them into your home.

After the repair work is completed, the Technical Officer may visit your home to check the quality of the workmanship and to ensure that the correct materials have been used.

What to do if you are not satisfied with the repair?

If you have concerns over the quality of the repair or about the conduct of the contractor’s staff, you can contact Customer Services at any time while the repair work is being carried out or after it has been completed. We will take the matter up with the contractor. Depending upon the particular circumstances, a Technical Officer may visit your home to assess the work before raising the issue with the contractor.

We regularly check that our tenants are satisfied with our repairs service. One of our Customer Service Officers will call you when your repair is complete to ask if you are happy with our service. Any comments you have will help us to improve our service to you.

Access to your home

In normal circumstances, where we require access to your home to either carry out an inspection or attend to repairs, we will give you 24 hours’ notice. We will either write to you or telephone you to make the necessary arrangements.

In an emergency situation, we may need immediate access to your home. An example of this situation may be where a water leak is resulting in flooding to adjacent properties. In these circumstances, a member of our staff or the Police will normally accompany the contractor.

It would be helpful if you would provide the Association with a contact telephone number of a relative or friend whom we can contact to provide access if you are away from home.

Gas Safety Checks

To reduce the risk of an accident and ensure high safety standards, we regularly check and maintain any gas appliances, such as boilers, that we have installed. We use CORGI-approved contractors to undertake this work.

If you smell gas:

• put out cigarettes. Do not use matches or naked flames
• do not operate electrical switches or doorbells
• open all doors and windows and keep them open until the gas escape has been stopped
• check to see if the gas tap has been left on accidentally or whether a pilot light has gone out
• phone Transco on 0800 111 999 to report the escape

Carbon Monoxide Poisoning

Faulty gas appliances can release poisonous carbon monoxide gas, which is colourless and doesn’t have a smell. Symptoms of poisoning by carbon monoxide may include tiredness, drowsiness, headaches and chest pains.

To protect yourself:

• never use a gas appliance if you think it is not working properly. Signs to look out for include yellow or orange flames, soot or stains around the appliance, and pilot lights which frequently blow out
• never cover an appliance or block the vents
• make sure there is adequate ventilation, which is essential if the appliance is to operate safely. It is very important that you never block or cover window or wall ventilators, no matter how draughty these may feel
• never block or cover outside flues
• don’t delay in providing access to our service engineers when this has been requested
• if you have any doubt about the safety of your gas appliances contact Customer Services as soon as possible.