Broken boiler leaving family hot and bothered

A broken boiler has forced one Black Country family to leave the windows open and sleep on top of the sheets throughout the freezing weather.

Tipton mother-of-two Julia Steventon has been unable to turn off the heating or hot water since October 2 thanks to a fault with her newly-replaced condensing boiler.

"It's a nightmare, especially at night. We have to leave the windows open and we've been sleeping on top of the sheets, even when we had snow," said Miss Steventon, aged 47, of Powis Avenue.

"It's ridiculous and I'm panicking - I have no idea how I'm going to afford the bill."

She said she had been in touch with British Gas to ask them to monitor how much the house was using, so she knew what she would be facing. "I only do 30 hours a week voluntary work at a florist and don't have any paying job, so it's really worrying me," she added.

Miss Steventon said the condensing boiler was fitted in last February, after numerous problems with the previous combination boiler.

Then, she said, during a routine check-up in October, an engineer from Sureway, who are contracted by Sandwell Homes, turned the heating and hot water on manually as there was a problem with the switch.

Since then, the family has not been able to turn it off again. Miss Steventon said there seemed to be a conflict between Sandwell Homes and Sureway as to who was responsible for fixing it.

"Nobody has been in touch with me to tell me what's going on at all," she said. "It's a bit ironic really — we were always freezing which is why they replaced it and now we have the opposite problem," she added.

No one was available for comment today from Sandwell Homes or Sureway.