Boiler System Down Westerly Rhode Island RI

[Greg Dowdell]

Hey BP, my 2nd floor tenant ran their boiler dry and didn't let me know until I saw an instagram story of them trying to get it going again. I had a friend who is an apprentice at a plumbing & heating company take a look but he couldn't get it going again. This boiler controls heating and hot water. It is old and I may end up replacing it. The soonest someone can come out from a couple local companies that I called is next Friday Nov 11th. Am I legally required to consider this an emergency visit and get someone out after hours? It's still fairly warm out so luckily I don't have to worry about freezing pipes. I'm weighing my options but wanted to get your perspectives.

[Anthony Thompson]

@Greg Dowdell I'm not an attorney so I can't speak to the legality per se, but for me, as long as it's not generally too cold I think the degree of how much extra I'd be willing to pay to resolve it sooner would depend partly on my relationship with the tenants, whether they are paying below market, at-market or above-market rent, etc.

It might be a good idea to get some space heaters for the tenants as a show of good faith for them in the meantime. My understanding is that you do need to provide heat and hot water though so I'd try to get it fixed or replaced sooner than 8 days from now if possible.

I don't know that you'd have to pay emergency overnight rates, but if it were me I'd try to get someone out for a daytime call within 3 days. I don't think 8 days would play well in court if you ever had to go to court against the tenants. So if it were me, I'd keep calling around to try to get a daytime (non-emergency) call sooner than the 8th.

If you've accepted biting the bullet and getting a new one I'm surprised you wouldn't be able to get someone faster. Since that's usually a bigger job, it's usually easier to find someone to do that than for a repair call.

It does sound like a crappy situation, but as my mother is fond of saying, "it could always be worse". In this case, it could be February :)