Repairs and maintenance

Reporting repairs

We are committed to maintaining your home to a high standard. You can help us by reporting repairs as soon as possible and allowing us into your home. When reporting a repair, we will need to know:

your name, address and contact phone number;
full details of the repair; and
when you are at home for the work to be done, or a contact number for the contractor to make an appointment with you.

You can contact us in the following ways.

Phone our general repairs freephone on 0800 068 8873 between 8.30am and 5pm from Monday to Friday, except on bank holidays.
If you have a general emergency outside our office hours, you should ring 0870 770 5314.
For repairs to gas heating and domestic hot-water systems, ring freephone 0808 1785900.
For emergency gas repairs outside normal office hours, you should ring freephone 0808 1785900.
Call into our office during office hours at Kilver Court, Kilver Street, Shepton Mallet.
Write to us at Mendip Housing Ltd, Kilver Court, Kilver Street, Shepton Mallet, Somerset, BA4 5NF.
E-mail us on info@mendiphousing.co.uk

We are responsible for many repairs, mainly to the structure of the building. We expect you to keep your home clean, tidy and in good condition. This includes decorating the inside of your home, and making sure that any shared areas are kept clean and tidy.

The repairs service

Please click here for full details about who is responsible for repairs.

Prioritising a repair

We provide an emergency service for general repairs, both during and outside office hours. You can report emergency repairs by phoning our repairs freephone line on 0800 068 8873 during office hours, or 0870 770 5314 outside office hours.

For emergency repairs to gas heating and domestic hot water systems, you should ring freephone 0808 1785900 .

Emergencies are classed as incidents that could cause damage to your health, or structural damage to your property, if they are not repaired or made safe immediately.

If you report a repair as an emergency and give false or misleading information which leads to an unnecessary visit by our contractor, we will charge you for the emergency call-out.

We will deal with your repair request as quickly as possible, and give it a category relating to its priority as follows.

Priority	Examples
Emergency If there is a serious health or safety risk to people or property, we will deal with the problem on the same day or within 24 hours. This may only be to make safe or carry out a temporary repair.	Fire, a collapsing structure, an uncontrolled water leak.
Urgent - electrical repairs We will deal with repairs to electrical fittings within two working days	Damaged fittings, a shower or smoke alarm failing.
Urgent - other repairs If a problem causes serious discomfort to the tenant, or could cause damage to property if it is left, we will complete the necessary work within five working days.	The hot-water or heating system failing, water penetration.
Routine We will complete general repairs within 20 working days.	Ease a door or windows, plastering, leaking gutters, damaged tiling.
Other work We will complete other work within a timescale appropriate to the work that needs to be carried out. We will tell you that timescale.	Damp-proofing, heating replacement, planned maintenance, modernisation.

Access and appointments

If we need to get into your home to carry out work, we will try to make an appointment with you. However, if you are out we will leave a card. Please follow the instructions on the card.

We will not take further action unless you reply and after a period of time we will cancel the repair.

Emergency access

If we need to get into your home because of an emergency and you are not able to let us in, we will force entry. We will repair any damage caused by the forced entry. You may need to collect keys to any new lock from our offices during office hours.

All our staff and contractors carry identity cards. Do not let anyone enter your home until you have seen this card and are confident they are genuine.

IMPORTANT SAFETY NOTICE

By law, we must inspect all gas appliances in your home every year. This check is for your own safety and protection, and we take it very seriously.

We will normally contact you beforehand to tell you when we will be calling to carry out this work. If the appointment date we give you is not convenient for you, you will be able to make other arrangements with us.

You must allow us into your home to carry out the gas safety check. If you do not, we may have to get an injunction against you through the courts, or start proceedings to get possession of your home.

Please help us to protect you and your family by providing reasonable access to your home.

Planned maintenance

We carry out certain maintenance work on a planned basis. This may include servicing gas heating, replacing windows or doors, carrying out outside repairs and redecorating the outside of your home, renewing central-heating systems, rewiring, or refurbishing kitchen and bathrooms.

Tenants' satisfaction and quality

We or our contractors will confirm, in writing, when we have ordered a repair and will tell you the contractor's name and the latest date we would expect the work to be completed.

We expect our contractors to carry out work in your home to a good-quality standard without causing unnecessary disruption or nuisance. When the repair has been completed, please return the customer satisfaction section of the letter to us with your comments.

This will help us to improve the repairs service we provide. To check the quality of the work, we also carry out inspections on a number of completed repairs. This is to make sure the work has been carried out correctly and to our agreed standard.

Helping hands

This service is available to tenants who are 60 or over or who are disabled and of any age (who receive a disablement benefit).

There are three main service areas which include:

garden maintenance for individual gardens;
a handy person; and
a decorating service.

To find out more, please contact us on 01749 331198.