PLANNED MAINTENANCE TO YOUR HOME

This information will give you general guidance on what happens when your home is scheduled for planned maintenance work. Some people call planned maintenance ‘modernisation work’ or ‘planned improvements’.

How are homes selected?

NCHA has surveyed many of its properties so we know the age and typical condition of major parts (known as components) of the properties. We use that information along with nationally adopted standards for how long those things would be expected to last if maintained and looked after reasonably by the householder to work out which homes will need which components replacing and plan that work ahead.

Expected life of major components:
Kitchens 20 years
Bathrooms 30 years
Heating system 30 years
Windows (plastic) 40 years
Wiring 30 years
Roof 50 years

To make sure we have up to date information we will re-survey a few properties to check if our general assessment on condition is right and we will also look at the volume of response repair requests we receive to see if components are getting towards the end of their economic life.

A provisional programme is created for at least two years ahead and we budget to ensure we will be able to fund the work.

Before any work starts we will put the work into contracts and tender them to companies we are confident will do a good job at a competitive price. Contractors are selected on a combination of the price they offer and the quality of work. Residents are involved in the selection of contractors – Please contact us if you think you would like to play a role in selection and working with contractors on future contracts. By making significant size contracts we get better value for money than if each home was let as an individual contract. In that way your rent money goes further.

We might also group other sorts of repairs such as fencing, garage upgrades, renewing paths etc into bulk contracts.

Decent Homes Standard

The Government has set a minimum standard that all housing associations and councils must maintain homes at in terms of age and condition of major components. With the Maintenance Customer Advisory Panel’s (CAP) input NCHA has funded a standard that exceeds the minimum required and so provides better quality homes to NCHA residents.


When will I know if my home is scheduled for work?

Each year we publish the list of streets where we are planning to do work in the next two years and we say what work we anticipate carrying out and broadly when.

We plan further ahead than two years but feedback from residents suggests that saying what might happen too far in advance is not particularly helpful as plans can change. If you do want to know when we would expect to be carrying out work more than two years ahead please call us between 9am and 5pm Monday – Friday on 0800 317861 and we will do our best to give you a timescale.


What work will be carried out?

Whatever work is carried out we will describe it to you beforehand in a letter. In most cases we will also call on you at your home to talk through any details with you and ensure that work is carried out at a time that is convenient to you.

Where the work is to replace your kitchen you will have a personal detailed input allowing you to ask for a particular layout, location of power points, choices on colours, styles. Adaptations and cultural requirements will be accommodated.

It is rare that someone needs to move out whilst work is being carried out but we will take each persons circumstances into account and agree how best to meet their needs.

Service Standards

We have devised a set of service standards that set out what you can expect from us on planned maintenance. These are set out below. We will also provide additional service standards when work is being proposed for a kitchen, bathroom, heating or window replacement work at your home.

We will ask you for your views on how we performed against these standards and use the results and feedback to improve our service quality. We will publicise the results annually in the Newsletter and on our website.

The general service standards for planned maintenance are:
Our aim is to give you three months notice of plans to carry out work inside your home and of one months notice where the work does not require us to be inside the property.
- We will communicate with you at a time and in a format or language that meets your needs
- We will explain clearly what work is due to be carried out and provide you with options on colours, layout and other finishes within the range we have available.
- If something cannot be done to fit with your expectations we will explain why
- We will minimise the disruption to you and provide you with dates when different stages of the work will be carried out and aim to minimise the time we are in your home before the work is completed
- We will aim to leave you with heating, water and a means of cooking at the end of each working day
- We will treat your home with respect and tidy up after ourselves each day
- We will take full account of any cultural or personal requirements regarding the ethnicity or gender of the people working in your home
- Where adaptations are needed or scheduled these will be built into any improvement work we carry out to bathrooms, kitchens or other internal work
- We will provide you with the name and mobile phone number of a dedicated contact for the work. Their role is to liaise between you and the people carrying out the work.
- At the end of the work we will ask for your feedback on how we have performed against service standards
- We will agree an appointment to come back and review any minor faults that have emerged after the job was finished.
- We aim to achieve satisfaction scores of a minimum of 90% across all standards.


What if I am unhappy about the work or the way it is carried out?

For all work that we carry out you will have a named contact person with a mobile phone number. They will keep you informed of what is happening, work with you to tailor what you need doing, organise timings of work to fit in and be your first point of contact in case of a complaint.


January 2008