Interruptions in the supply of water occur frequently, and the deterioration of pipelines and other equipment that sends the resource to homes is to blame.
If this fact was a single one, then you can wait a few hours without moisture, but when hot water is turned off for a long time, you should act and restore the supply.
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The public utilities may not even give an answer and the exact terms of restoration, and in order to correct the situation, you need to know how to act.
What interruptions are considered normal
Most often, disruptions in the supply of hot water occur during the summer period, and then they are of a protracted nature, as utilities carry out maintenance work and turn off entire areas.
The company must warn about the start of preventive actions in advance, but there are also accidents associated with a pipe burst or failure of a thermal power plant. Therefore, you should separate the moments in which you need to complain, and when it is better to wait.
The legislation prescribes the norms for supplying the population with water, for this purpose the Government Decree No. 232 of 2017 was adopted, and it stipulates the rules for shutting down and the procedure for actions if the resource does not meet the declared quality.
Based on the standards, we can say the following:
| Cold water | Can be turned off for no more than 8 hours per month in case of an accident, and one shutdown cannot exceed 4 hours, while increasing the absence of water by an hour reduces the payment by 0.15% |
| If the supply pressure is reduced by 25% | Then the hourly pay is also reduced by 0.1% |
| Hot supply | They can turn off a total of 8 hours per month, and no more than 4 hours at a time. An exception may be problems on a dead end line, then the lack of water can be observed throughout the day, and this will be normal |
| Hygienic requirements number 20 says | That the temperature of hot water should be within 60-75 degrees Celsius, while day and night deviations can be no more than three and five degrees, respectively |
| At a temperature of hot water no more than 40 degrees | This fact is fixed, and until the situation is corrected, you can pay the expense at the rate of a cold resource |
Phone numbers for residents
If there is no water in the tap, and the residents have not been notified of the upcoming shutdown, then you should call the management company, as they can provide information on the duration of the interruptions. But you can establish a connection directly with the service provider, and get a comment already from him.
You can find out the necessary numbers from utility bills, find them on information stands near the entrance, as well as on the Internet.
In each city, you can contact the dispatch service for information, and most often it works around the clock. The number can be found in the help desk, or you can take it from the Criminal Code.
Moscow
In Moscow, as in other cities, there is also a service, but the citizens have a question: if there is no hot water, where to call?
In the capital, MOEK is responsible, which is available around the clock at the hotline number 8 800 700 40 70.
If the shutdown affected not only hot water, but also heating, as well as cold supply, then it would be useful to contact the Moscow Housing Inspectorate.
It is also open 24/7 on 8 495 681 77 80 and 681 21 45.
All management companies must provide their customers with quality services, and a shutdown is exactly the case for which you need to demand a discount for delaying the resumption.
St. Petersburg (St. Petersburg)
The first point will be a call to the management company, which should have an emergency dispatch service, but in other cases, you can use a call to the City Monitoring Center, as well as the housing committee by phone 8 812 576 24 25.
If it concerns a cold resource, the State Unitary Enterprise “Vodokanal SPB” will be responsible, but for a hot one, you need to call the organization “Heating Network of St. Petersburg” at the coordinates 901 46 46.
Where to complain when the outage drags on
Prolonged deprivation of water imposes its own inconvenience and creates unnecessary problems, while it would be pointless to report to the organization if it is a planned shutdown.
But accidents are under the jurisdiction of the Housing Office or the management company, and the more complaints, the faster the problem is usually repaired.
If the deadlines are delayed, or not called at all, you should figure out what to do? In such cases, you can contact:
- housing inspection;
- committee of housing and communal services under the administration;
- city authorities;
- reception office of the City Duma.
You can also send an application to the Housing Inspectorate, Rospotrebnadzor and even the prosecutor's office, and in some cities there are special services created just to solve problems in the urban sector.
If it was decided to send a written complaint, then you should submit it personally in two copies, one of which remains in your hands and receives a mark of acceptance.
If you refuse to accept the complaint, you should send it by registered mail with a notification that will indicate receipt.
After consideration of the complaint, the reaction must follow within three days, and if this period is delayed, you can go to Rospotrebnadzor or the prosecutor's office with statements.
Even filing an application with these authorities significantly speeds up the process of hot water appearing in the taps, since if the supplier fails to act, he will receive not only a fine, but also other responsibility that the authorities will bear.
How is the water bill recalculated?
When applying the recalculation, this will be reflected in the receipt for housing and communal services, and due to failures in the water supply, the amount only decreases.
True, for this you should submit an application to the service, and specialists will adjust the amount in the amount that needs to be paid for the quality service provided.
It is permissible to adjust the payment for hot water only if the shutdown period is exceeded, and when there are no meters in the apartment or house.
Every hour, while there is no hot resource, the monthly payment for the service is reduced by 0.15%, but you can request such a step only if the norm is exceeded.
Planned works are not included in the list of reasons why you can reduce the payment for CU, but in other cases, you need to require a recalculation.
For this, an appeal is sent to the EIRTs at the place of residence, an application and a receipt for housing and communal services are sent there.
If you refuse to accept documents, you can quite legally contact Rospotrebnadzor and the State Housing Inspectorate, unless, of course, the established legal norms have been violated.
It should be understood that if there is no supply, then the meters will not work, so you will not need to pay extra amounts.
The opportunity to reduce payments is present only for homeowners without meters, and the correction of public utilities is to reduce the standard amount of payment per month.
In Moscow, annually from May to the end of August, hot water is turned off for preventive maintenance. The hot water shutdown schedule is drawn up and published before the start of the scheduled shutdown season.
2. Why is hot water turned off every year in Moscow?
Turning off hot water is a technical necessity for preparing communications for the heating season in order to ensure reliable operation of all elements of a complex district heating system during the cold season - thermal stations, main and distribution heating networks, central and individual heating points. Carrying out preventive work, as a rule, requires turning off hot water from consumers for a short period of time.
3. How long is hot water off?
Today in Moscow, the duration of blackouts is no more than 10 days. At the same time, in 2011, water was turned off for 14 days, and even earlier - for 21 days. 10 days is a reasonable term for turning off hot water without losing the quality and reliability of the Moscow heat and power system.
In new microdistricts, where new generation networks are laid, modern heating points are equipped, the shutdown period can be reduced to the minimum necessary for preventive maintenance, ensuring high-quality preparation of equipment. Replacing old motors, pumps and heat exchangers requires more time and attention. For this reason, the shutdown period may vary in different areas, quarters, and even neighboring houses.
The term for turning off hot water for the period of preventive maintenance is indicated from the time and date of the start of the shutdown to the time and date of the end of the shutdown of hot water supply, but cannot exceed 10 days, that is, it must be less than 240 hours.
4. In which houses in Moscow hot water is not turned off at all or is turned off for a short time?
In houses with alternative piping, hot water may not be turned off every year, or for a short period of time, because it is possible to check and repair the main system while hot water is supplied through the backup pipes. However, even the most modern equipment requires preventive maintenance, so it is not possible to completely refuse to turn off hot water in a metropolis with a centralized heating system.
5. Why isn't the cold water turned off?
Because the water supply system provides for backup pipes. Water passes through them when the main pipes are being repaired.
6. Do I have to pay for hot water during a shutdown?
Payment for the consumption of cold and hot water is carried out in accordance with the readings of individual metering devices installed in the apartments. So that the hot water meter does not wind up extra cubic meters during the preventive shutdown, we recommend that you turn it off for this time and use only cold water - especially since it is cheaper. Often, management companies close the in-house valves themselves for the period of outages, but additional foresight will not hurt.
In the event of an unscheduled shutdown, if you did not receive hot water in the required volume or there were interruptions in its supply, you can count on recalculating the amount of the fee in the direction of its reduction, up to a complete exemption from payment for such a service. And for each hour of hot water supply, the temperature of which is below 40°C, in total during the billing period, payment for the consumed water is made at the rate for cold water.
In residential buildings, the hot water supply is cut off at night. What is the meaning of this event and how the thermal power companies react to complaints related to shutdowns, the correspondent of the Minsk-Novosti agency found out.
One of the citizens who are not satisfied with this order is a resident of house number 15, building 1 on the street. Voronyansky Anna German. Turning to the editorial office of the Minsk-Novosti agency, she said that hot water disappears in their house from 00.00 to 05.30:
- I get up for work at 03.30 - I need to pack up, and get far. But I can’t take a shower - the water is icy, even washing is unpleasant. Previously, I worked as a trolley bus driver for thirty years, the same transport workers live in the house, for whom, due to the work schedule, night shutdowns create serious inconvenience. It is noteworthy that after appeals to various authorities in the last five years, hot water was supplied around the clock, but disappeared after a two-week scheduled shutdown last summer. Again letters, calls to direct lines. And water was periodically given, but for a short time - for two weeks. Is it really necessary to regularly complain somewhere in order to use the utility service at a convenient time? Here are my friends who live in the same apartment buildings in Loshitsa, Serebryanka, they say that they never turn off hot water at night. Why are we worse?- Anna Vasilievna is perplexed.
At this address, the UE "Minskkommunteploset" is responsible for the supply of heat energy and the operation of the heat point, in which water is heated for the needs of hot water supply.
- For decades, energy supply organizations at night, as a rule, from 00.00 to 05.00 turn off the circulation booster pumps, which provide transportation of hot water in the water supply system of a residential building- began with an explanation of the situation as a whole, the chief engineer of the enterprise Vladislav Levin.- This is done in order to rationally use fuel and energy resources and due to the minimum consumption of hot water at night. According to the social standard, the temperature of hot water at the consumer must be at least + 50 C, while in accordance with the methodological recommendations approved by the order of the Ministry of Housing and Public Utilities of February 10. 2018 No. 19, this standard should be observed from 06.00 to 24.00. I would also note: for our consumers (UE Minskkommunteploset serves about 50% of the capital's housing stock, the rest of the residential buildings are the Minsk Thermal Networks branch of RUE Minskenergo), we cut off mainly from 00.30 to 04.30, sometimes from 00.00 to 05.00. As a result, the city saves about 150,000 kWh of electricity every month in our housing stock during night outages. The energy supplying organization does not dispose of these saved funds.
V. Levin notes that in 2017 and the first half of this year, the enterprise received no more than 30 requests from residents regarding night outages. However, it is technically impossible to provide hot water to one or several individual apartments around the clock. When the pumps are turned on, water is transported to all apartments in a group of houses, powered by one central heating point (CHP). At the same time, thermal power companies respond to every complaint and try to find a compromise:
- In each case, we understand individually, we go to the place, we talk with the applicant. Anything can happen: someone in the family has a disability, someone's children get sick, someone returns at night from work. We look at how justified the reason is and offer options. In particular, we set the shutdown time relay for a shorter period, that is, not from 00.00, but from 01.00 or even from 01.30, and turn on the pumps earlier. For individual houses where the same transport workers live, we do not make any shutdowns at all. Also, hot water circulates around the clock through pipes during major public holidays, when holidays come together, for example, on New Year's Eve.
Regarding house No. 15, building 1 on Voronyansky Street, V. Levin reported the following:
- From the administration of the Oktyabrsky district, we were given the appeals of the residents of this house received on the direct line. Their complaints were related to insufficient hot water temperature at 6 am. We checked: the water at that hour met the standard of +50C. But taking into account the achievement of the maximum effect on this appeal, the specialists adjusted the relay: if before, shutdowns were made in the period from 00.00 to 5.00, now from 1.00 to 4.00. Anna German, a resident, did not contact UE Minskkommunteploset, so we cannot comment on her problem and give explanations about the operating mode of the heating unit in previous years.