In August 2020, Bolesławianka Housing Cooperative adopted a resolution stating that residents of the building at 2a-d Gałczyńskiego Street would settle heating consumption costs according to heat allocators. In 2021, the tender was won by Minol ZENNER sp. z o.o., which removed the existing allocators from the apartments and installed new ones. The settlement system was supposed to remain unchanged. The building at 2a-d Gałczyńskiego Street has 32 apartments, and since 1997 most of them have had heat allocators installed.

At the beginning of 2022, residents realized that their 2021 heating consumption would not be settled according to allocators, but according to the floor area of the premises. This was to be governed by a provision of the new Regulations for Settling the Costs of Heat Supply for Central Heating and the Preparation of Domestic Hot Water. According to the provision, the Cooperative was to use allocators only in buildings where at least 80% of residential units had them. It turned out that the percentage of apartments with allocators required by the regulations was too low in the building at 2a-d Gałczyńskiego Street.

In a letter addressed to the Cooperative, the residents demonstrated that the provision in Bolesławianka’s new regulations was not adapted to the Energy Law or to the regulation of the Minister of Infrastructure on the technical conditions that buildings should meet.

The statutory provision permits heating costs to be settled according to the floor area or volume of a unit in exceptional cases, when there is no technical possibility of settling the costs according to allocator readings.

The residents contacted a representative of Minol ZENNER sp. z o.o. and obtained confirmation from him that there were no obstacles to settling the costs according to the allocators from the time the new devices were installed.

Meanwhile, the Regulation of the Minister of Infrastructure states that buildings with water-based heating systems supplied from a district heating network should contain devices for settling consumed heat, enabling the individual settlement of heating costs for particular apartments or commercial premises in the building.

“The new regulations (of the Cooperative—the editor’s note) should not only oblige owners to use heat economically, but also ensure proper conditions for using the apartments and the entire building,” says one of the residents of the building at Gałczyńskiego Street. “Everyone complains about the heating costs (the editor’s note), and unfortunately they are right. The truth is that heating costs make up a significant part of the monthly charges. These costs rise year after year, and this year the increase was staggering; some residents with lower incomes are feeling it particularly painfully,” the resident adds.

“Regarding the building at Gałczyńskiego Street, I inform you that the settlement of heat supply costs for 2022 will be carried out using electronic heat allocators with radio reading,” informed Beata Ślęzak, president of the Cooperative’s Management Board.

And what about 2021, which is what the residents are concerned about? The president’s response contains no answer.

We will return to this matter.