Keep on top of gas servicing with impactRESPONSE
03-Jan-2010
Gas servicing is a hot topic in social housing at the moment. As social housing providers grow in size through mergers and PFI, so does the size and diversity of the estates they manage and this means an increased burden is placed on maintenance teams. Gas servicing is an annual commitment for landlords which means an annual headache for service engineers looking to maintain gas safety for tenants.
One of the main issues surrounding gas servicing is a lack of awareness among tenants that their gas supply and appliances must be checked yearly. This is the cause of the majority of problems as tenants can delay the process by missing appointments and in extreme cases tenants are refusing entry to service engineers. In order to maintain safe gas supplies, in some cases landlords have been forcing entry into properties to undertake the checks required of them by law. However, this brings with it its own set of legal difficulties and should be avoided at all costs.
For many landlords then, this can mean that they are stuck between a rock and a hard place: on the one hand they are legally obliged to service the gas supply and equipment every year; on the other hand they need the permission of the tenant to enter the property to carry out such checks, and since this permission is not always granted this can place the landlord in a tricky position. So you have a legal compunction to service gas appliances but you don’t have any legal rights to access; so what can be done about ensuring servicing is carried out? One of the most obvious solutions is the need to communicate more effectively with tenants to ensure that they are aware of the importance of such checks and how they benefit them.
The second potential solution is more practical; repairs and maintenance software, such as impactRESPONSE, can help you control the process. The systems monitors the annual servicing process, flagging up when servicing is due so that tenants can’t slip through the net. Once the need for servicing has been identified, the system can prompt customer service to contact the tenant and start the process of communicating the benefits and negotiating a mutually agreeable time for the service to be carried out. Once a time is agreed the system can then schedule appointments and keep track of which properties have been checked and which have missed appointments.
This level of control will help landlord organisations to maintain control of the gas servicing process to ensure that properties under the control are maintained safely and effectively while maintaining the goodwill of the tenants.
Communication and control may not completely solve the problem of tenants refusing entry for servicing to be undertaken, but it can help reduce the problem by making sure that tenants understand the importance of regular gas servicing and feel consulted in the whole process.
|
