Retired Leominster man left with no hot water for six weeks

A Herefordshire family narrowly avoided a Christmas with no hot water, after a water tank gave out six weeks earlier.

Malcolm Dean of Cranes Lane, Leominster, said he first spotted a wet patch on his kitchen ceiling on November 11, then found everything in the upstairs airing cupboard was wet.

A plumber found the hot water header tank has split, so shut the water off and made a report to the property’s manager, social housing firm Stonewater.

“We then heard nothing other than ‘we are looking into it’,” Mr Dean said. “I couldn’t get anywhere with them.”

Being retired and visually impaired, “it’s not good for me to be taking hot water from the kettle to the sink”, he said – adding this was also likely to prove an expensive substitute.

He was eventually told someone would come out to fit new water tank on December 3.

“But the person who came out knew nothing about the tank, they just came to see what the problem was,” according to Mr Dean, who lives with wife Annette and son Scott.

“He concluded it was the ballcock, which he replaced and refilled the tank, which leaked again,” he said, adding: “I then kept phoning, only to be told the problem has been passed on.”

In exasperation, he called the Local Democracy Reporter Service, who contacted Stonewater for an explanation.

Its assistant director of responsive repairs and capital investment Joanna Nice said: “We’ve been working to address the issues with Mr Dean’s water tank and the loss of hot water supply.

“Our repairs contractor attended out-of-hours when the issue was first reported, however the leak in the tank required a specialist part that needed to be ordered, which has now been received.”

Thanking the LDRS for their intervention, Mr Dean said the social housing provider had originally offered to fit the part on December 30, but he successfully pressed for ten days sooner, in good time for Christmas.