A pensioner who suffers with arthritis says he is forced to wear multiple layers and go to bed early to keep warm as temperatures inside his home plummet to 5°C. Keith Johnson says a boiler issue has left him without heating in freezing temperatures.
Because of a leak in his boiler, the elderly man is forced to go upstairs four times a day to top it up with water otherwise he would be without heating completely. The "fed up" 77-year-old, who lives in Redbourne in Lincolnshire, says his housing provider Ongo are just "not bothering" to do anything about the problem.
Keith, who has lived in the house in St Andrews Close since 1966, told GrimsbyLive he first started having issues with his boiler on January 19, when he realised his heating was not coming on despite the cold temperatures. When he contacted Ongo to report the issue, he claims he was told the matter was not an emergency.
The pensioner, who has arthritis, said he had no choice but to just wrap up in multiple layers and go to bed early to keep warm as temperatures got down to 5°C inside his home. When he complained to Ongo that the situation was damaging his health on January 21, the housing provider sent out someone that night to get the boiler going again.
But Keith's joy was shortlived, as the next morning, the heating once again would not work. An engineer came out on Sunday evening, but by Monday morning, it was broken again.
Keith said: "They came out on Monday night, and I think it was sometime on Tuesday I had to ring them again, but the thing is, the boiler hasn't been serviced for over a year.
"They're just not bothering to do it. They say it's been done, I know it hasn't, but they're just ignoring me. They've got a piece of paper with a signature on, that's good enough for them, and they say I'm lying."
He said he now has to go upstairs around four times a day to top up his boiler with water - and said he said he has "given up" trying to contact Ongo. "There's just no point in bothering. They're not interested," he said.
"The boiler is losing pressure all the time so I'm having to top it up four times a day. Every time I want my heating on or hot water, I have to go upstairs and top the boiler up for it to come on. If I didn't do it, I wouldn't have any heating.
"I'm getting fed up with it, it's not easy having to go upstairs all the time just to do that so I can get some hot water."
Russ Edwards, Operations Manager at Ongo said: “We first received a call on 10 January from Mr Johnson, reporting issues with his boiler. We attended the same day to fix this.
“However, we attended again on 21 January, after further reports of the boiler again not working. Here we identified that a self-sealant needed to be added, which would need to be booked in at a later date.
“In the meantime, Mr Johnson was able to reset the pressure on the boiler to ensure he would not go without heating and hot water in his property.
“Following further calls we again attended the day after, on 22 January, where a leak on a valve was found, and the next day (23 January) to replace this.
“On 24 January, Mr Johnson then contacted us to report reoccurring issues, which will be fixed by the self-sealant identified three days prior. A job has been booked in for this and we are attending on Friday 3 February to complete this work
“We are very much sympathetic to Mr Johnson’s case and would like to sincerely apologise for the inconvenience this has caused.”
