OMC Responsible for apartment pipes?

The are meant to cover everything up until it enters your property. There could be problems right through the installation but only the pipe to your apartment is your issue. Now depending on the size of the block it could be a direct gas connection to each place with a meter at the connection point. So where is the meter?

Yeah it does sound like they have no responsibility for it. Might be worth changing to electricity if the cost is high.

Do they all need to be heated at the same time?

OP: you pen

but multiple apartments that have had their gas shut off due to the same reason

If the fault is before the meters then I would expect all

As it would be one supply in?

Codswallop!! Have they never heard of the plan to move to Hydrogen based heating using the existing gas network? Many of the boilers available now are H2 ready, meaning that if the plan comes to fruition then the gas provider could swap over from natural-gas to H2 and you wouldn't even know! British Gas page for reference:

https://www.britishgas.co.uk/the-source/greener-living/hydrogen-heating.html

Tell them that you specifically sourced a new boiler with H2 compatibility so that you'd be ready for the future.

Additionally, I'd nearly bet that the OMC have a policy where it states that air-conditioning coils are banned from balconies, if so how are they proposing to move to this magical new technology in the absence of a balcony heat exchanger? I know that the obvious answer here is to mount it on the roof, but are they proposing to support having that pipe-work installed at their cost in lieu of repairing the existing gas piping?

Unless your contract says otherwise, the pipes are owned by the OMC and they are responsible for any repair work. It sounds like someone on the board of directors doesn’t want the hassle or expense of fixing them and has picked a handy (but invalid) excuse.

It’s time to start being the noisy wheel that gets the oil. Phone the managing agent repeatedly until you get an assurance that the pipes will be fixed. Those guys will usually manage multiple estates so they’re always busy. If you approach this passively, you’ll be put on the long finger. Be a thorn in their side and they’ll be a thorn in the directors side.

As soon as you get a commitment that the work will be done, start looking for progress updates and a completion date.

The trick is to do this firmly but politely. Don’t be overly pushy or rude, don’t give the agent a reason to blacklist you. Understand that it’s probably not them taking the decision to delay or defer repairs but that you have to go through them to get a decision and updates. Don’t be fobbed off by tales of a non-gas future, that’s your decision to make, not the OMCs.

I agree that it's a very poor initial response from the OMC but your olution is a bit dramatic and will just delay a satisfactory response. . A graduated and amicable course of action is how to resolve this (something like that proposed above). Litigation should be the last resort.

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At the moment we are considering biting the bullet and replacing it with electric boilers

Wow…!! I would not capitulate that easily. I'd be escalating that pretty quickly by contacting the directors of the board of management for the block and going from there. Plenty of cases documented on here where that has been done in the past, have a look in the Accom and Property section here for historical issues.

Plus, who says that the apartment's electrical system is capable of this transition?

The corrosion of pipes commonly occurs when water comes into contact with both the copper of pipes and the surrounding concrete. Water shouldn't be present in the areas where pipes are passing through, so any corrosion of the pipes in the common areas of the building is a highly likely to be a secondary symptom of the water intrusion. That's not wear and tear in my book.

I'd be suggesting that you hire a structural auditor between you and have an independent report completed. Then if the corrosion can be linked to the ingress of water I'd firing it right back at the OMC.

Hi mjas,

I'm just wondering if you've been able to make any progress with the OMC? I'm in the same situation as yourself (possibly even the same building by the sounds of things)