Get a rented home ready for winter: a landlord’s checklist

A little work in the autumn can save a call in the night later: the heating checked, pipes protected, gutters clear, and your tenants knowing where the stopcock is and who to ring. This checklist goes through each, and where the app helps.

Heating: the gas check and a service

Look up when the gas safety check is next due. If it falls in the winter, it helps to book it before the cold, when engineers are less busy.

Each gas appliance and flue you are responsible for must be checked by a Gas Safe registered engineer at intervals of no more than 12 months. A check up to 2 months before the deadline keeps the old deadline date for the next one. So a check made in those 2 months doesn’t bring the next one forward.

Many landlords also have the boiler serviced before the cold, often on the same visit. A service and the gas safety check aren’t the same thing, so ask the engineer what each covers.

While they’re there, it helps to check that the heating comes on, the radiators heat evenly, and the controls work. Ask your tenant whether the boiler has been losing pressure or showing a fault.

Pipes and the stopcock

A frozen pipe can split, and the leak often shows only when it thaws.

• Lag pipes in the loft, the garage, outbuildings and on outside walls, and any water tank in the loft.
• Fit a cover to an outside tap, or turn it off from inside and drain it.
• Find the stopcock, check that it turns, and show your tenant where it is. A stopcock that hasn’t been turned in years can stick.
• If the home will be empty in a cold spell, many landlords keep the heating on low, or have the water drained down.

When your tenant chooses Water you can’t stop, or water near electrics on their page, it shows these steps at once.

Once your house guide is published, your answer for Stopcock shows straight after the first of those steps. Your answer for Water company’s emergency line shows after them, if you give it.

Gutters, drains and outside

Keeping the structure and exterior in repair is the landlord’s job, and that includes drains, gutters and external pipes. It doesn’t cover work your tenant should do as a careful tenant.

Have gutters and downpipes cleared once the leaves have fallen, and look for loose roof tiles, blocked gullies and slow drains. Clearing a gutter costs less than repairing the damage when it overflows.

Check outside lights, and paths and steps that may turn slippery.

Who your tenants ring at night

A boiler that stops or a pipe that bursts on a cold night needs someone to answer the phone. Check that the number your tenants ring out of hours still works, and that someone will answer it over the winter, holidays included.

You set it under Account › Repairs and tenants’ settings › Repairs settings. Send Test Emergency there shows the app’s emergency email reaching your phone. It’s an email, not a call, so the number your tenants ring matters more.

For someone covering when you’re away, a trade for each kind of job, and testing it all, see the guide to cover at night and when you’re away.

Tell your tenants where everything is

The house guide is where you write down what your tenant needs on a cold night. These items are in its Emergencies section.

• Stopcock, with a photo.
• Gas meter and emergency control valve, with a photo.
• Consumer unit (fuse box), with a photo.
• Boiler, with only the steps in the boiler’s user instructions, as the app asks.

Under Who to call, and when, Standing instruction: a burst pipe or leak and Standing instruction: no heating say in your own words what your tenant should do out of hours.

If you don’t know where something is, Ask Your Tenant on the house guide sends them the question. When the guide is ready, tap Publish Guide. Your tenants see it on their page, and each version goes in the evidence file.

It also helps to send your tenants a short note before winter: where the stopcock is, to keep the heating on low if they go away, and who to ring.

What the law says

• Each gas appliance and flue you are responsible for must be checked by a Gas Safe registered engineer. The first check is within 12 months of installation, then at intervals of no more than 12 months.
• A check up to 2 months before the deadline keeps the old deadline date for the next one.
• You must keep in repair the structure and exterior, including drains, gutters and external pipes. You must also keep in repair and proper working order the installations for water, gas, electricity, sanitation, space heating and heating water.
• That doesn’t cover work your tenant should do as a careful tenant, or things your tenant is entitled to remove.

For a particular tenancy, and anything this guide leaves open, take advice from a solicitor or Citizens Advice.