Help with heating and hot water on tap

With warmer weather still a few months away having working heating and hot water systems is key to staying healthy this winter.

Rochdale Borough Council’s Home Improvement Agency (HIA) is offering a helping hand to elderly and vulnerable households whose heating systems are not working, putting them at particular risk of health problems due to excess cold.

The council made a successful bid for £20,000 of funding from the Government’s Warm Homes Healthy People scheme to pay for heating repairs, where appropriate, or provide alternative solutions. The scheme is running until the end of March.

Once a request for help is made a home visit will be arranged to establish the nature of the problem. Where there is a simple solution, such as resetting the thermostat, work will be carried out immediately, otherwise arrangements will be made for a council-approved gas safe contractor to carry out the repairs.

If repair is not possible, or costs are too high, the council will loan households oil-filled radiators and explore other ways of funding repairs such as Warm Front grants or charitable trust fund applications.

Those eligible to apply are people who are: 

• Over 75-years-old
• Frail
• Have pre-existing cardiovascular or respiratory illnesses and other chronic medical conditions
• Severe mental illness
• Dementia
• Learning difficulties
• Arthritis, limited mobility or otherwise at risk of falls
• Young children
• Living in deprived circumstances
• Living in homes with mould
• Fuel poor – needing to spend 10% or more of household income on heating their home Elderly people living alone 

To request help call the HIA on 01706 926671 between 9.00am and 5.00pm Monday to Friday. Visits will be arranged the same day wherever possible.