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Meriden mayor “outraged” with building department over resident’s heating issue
http://www.myrecordjournal.com/meriden/meridennews/6997042-129/meriden-mayor-outraged-with-building-department-over-residents-heating-issue.html
March 6, 2015 08:11PM
By Molly Callahan Record-Journal staff
MERIDEN — A resident frustrated with heating issues in his grandparents house prompted Mayor Manny Santos to write a scathing letter to a city department over its handling of the matter.
On Thursday, Santos wrote a letter to City Planner Dominick Caruso on behalf of resident Robert Angiletta, whose parents’ house on Fleming Road isn’t being heated properly after a propane heating unit was installed in 2013.
ngiletta contacted city building officials after disputing the heating situation with the contractor that installed the system. After a city building official said the department tried to “mediate” the situation between Angiletta and the contractor, Angilletta contacted Santos. Santos chasised the department for its handling of the situation.
“I write to document my outrage at how Meriden constituent Mr. Robert Angiletta and his parents have been treated by our Building Official’s office, and the apparent incompetency of said office,” the letter begins.
Santos didn’t speak with Caruso or Building Official David Zwik before sending the letter, though did speak at length with Angiletta.
“My concern is that the department may not quite be understanding the angst that a lot of taxpayers are going through when they contact that office, which is why I felt compelled to send that,” Santos said Friday, adding that he regularly receives complaints from citizens about the building department.
Caruso expressed frustration however, that Santos didn’t check with him or anyone else in the office “to find out what actually happened” before sending the letter.
“Our department has been working to try to get this resolved, and we’ve been trying to get it resolved in a way so that in the winter they wouldn’t have to shut off the heat” to the Fleming Road home. “I am checking though to make sure that we did everything in a timely manner and that we were taking care of it.”
Angiletta said Friday he first contacted Blu Energy, a subsidiary of the Cheshire-based Arbor Energy, in 2013 to have the electric heating at his elderly parents’ house switched over to propane heating. The equipment was installed in October 2013 for a total cost of nearly $17,000, though it hasn’t been heating the Fleming Road home sufficiently, Angiletta said.
“My parents are elderly, they want the house at 72 degrees in the winter,” Angiletta said. “On some of these extremely cold days, it doesn’t go any higher than 65 (degrees), and that’s just not good enough.”
Angiletta said at first he “tried to work things out” with the contractor from Blu Energy, “but I didn’t get anywhere with him.” Representatives from Blu Energy could not be reached for comment, Friday.
When that failed, Angiletta turned to city building officials for the enforcement of potential building violations created by the contractor during the work. He felt if the violations were corrected, it would have resolved the heating issue.
Building Official David Zwick said Friday that a permit was filed with the city Oct. 29, 2013, the start of the whole process. Prior to the issuance of the permit however, the city requested from Blu Energy a heat loss load, or a calculation of how much heat it would take to heat the house on a five-degree day, the standard temperature for which such calculations are made.
That calculation is used to determine what size unit to install in a house, and still hasn’t been submitted, Zwick said.
The city ultimately issued the permit on Nov. 20, 2013, “the argument being that it was winter and these people would need some heat,” Zwick said.
The first city inspection of the system in operation was Jan. 17, 2014, at which point it was failed not only for the lack of heat loss study, but also for reasons including “homeowner claims equipment is under sized,” and other equipment-type issues.
Between January 2014 and a more recent inspection on Dec. 10, 2014, Zwick said the building department has been “going back and forth, trying to mediate the dispute between the owner and the contractor.”
“We went out to that Dec. 10 inspection and called the owner and the contractor together to see if we could get a resolution,” Zwick said. “The contractor had a small list of things (to complete); eight basic items you could break down into 50.”
The unit failed inspection again in December, for similar reasons as before.
With still no resolution however, Angiletta called the Office of the State Building Inspector, a branch of the state Department of Administrative Services. State Inspector John Tye went out with Zwick on Jan. 12 of this year and cited 33 building violations. On Thursday, Zwick sent a notice of violation to Arbor Energy Founder Bruce Owen, giving the company 30 days to correct those violations.
As the dispute continues, Angiletta said he just wants to see action.
“The bottom line is, I just want something that my parents paid for to work, and to keep them warm.”
mcallahan@record-journal.com (203) 317-2279 Twitter: @MollCal
http://www.myrecordjournal.com/meriden/meridennews/6997042-129/meriden-mayor-outraged-with-building-department-over-residents-heating-issue.html
March 6, 2015 08:11PM
By Molly Callahan Record-Journal staff
MERIDEN — A resident frustrated with heating issues in his grandparents house prompted Mayor Manny Santos to write a scathing letter to a city department over its handling of the matter.
On Thursday, Santos wrote a letter to City Planner Dominick Caruso on behalf of resident Robert Angiletta, whose parents’ house on Fleming Road isn’t being heated properly after a propane heating unit was installed in 2013.
ngiletta contacted city building officials after disputing the heating situation with the contractor that installed the system. After a city building official said the department tried to “mediate” the situation between Angiletta and the contractor, Angilletta contacted Santos. Santos chasised the department for its handling of the situation.
“I write to document my outrage at how Meriden constituent Mr. Robert Angiletta and his parents have been treated by our Building Official’s office, and the apparent incompetency of said office,” the letter begins.
Santos didn’t speak with Caruso or Building Official David Zwik before sending the letter, though did speak at length with Angiletta.
“My concern is that the department may not quite be understanding the angst that a lot of taxpayers are going through when they contact that office, which is why I felt compelled to send that,” Santos said Friday, adding that he regularly receives complaints from citizens about the building department.
Caruso expressed frustration however, that Santos didn’t check with him or anyone else in the office “to find out what actually happened” before sending the letter.
“Our department has been working to try to get this resolved, and we’ve been trying to get it resolved in a way so that in the winter they wouldn’t have to shut off the heat” to the Fleming Road home. “I am checking though to make sure that we did everything in a timely manner and that we were taking care of it.”
Angiletta said Friday he first contacted Blu Energy, a subsidiary of the Cheshire-based Arbor Energy, in 2013 to have the electric heating at his elderly parents’ house switched over to propane heating. The equipment was installed in October 2013 for a total cost of nearly $17,000, though it hasn’t been heating the Fleming Road home sufficiently, Angiletta said.
“My parents are elderly, they want the house at 72 degrees in the winter,” Angiletta said. “On some of these extremely cold days, it doesn’t go any higher than 65 (degrees), and that’s just not good enough.”
Angiletta said at first he “tried to work things out” with the contractor from Blu Energy, “but I didn’t get anywhere with him.” Representatives from Blu Energy could not be reached for comment, Friday.
When that failed, Angiletta turned to city building officials for the enforcement of potential building violations created by the contractor during the work. He felt if the violations were corrected, it would have resolved the heating issue.
Building Official David Zwick said Friday that a permit was filed with the city Oct. 29, 2013, the start of the whole process. Prior to the issuance of the permit however, the city requested from Blu Energy a heat loss load, or a calculation of how much heat it would take to heat the house on a five-degree day, the standard temperature for which such calculations are made.
That calculation is used to determine what size unit to install in a house, and still hasn’t been submitted, Zwick said.
The city ultimately issued the permit on Nov. 20, 2013, “the argument being that it was winter and these people would need some heat,” Zwick said.
The first city inspection of the system in operation was Jan. 17, 2014, at which point it was failed not only for the lack of heat loss study, but also for reasons including “homeowner claims equipment is under sized,” and other equipment-type issues.
Between January 2014 and a more recent inspection on Dec. 10, 2014, Zwick said the building department has been “going back and forth, trying to mediate the dispute between the owner and the contractor.”
“We went out to that Dec. 10 inspection and called the owner and the contractor together to see if we could get a resolution,” Zwick said. “The contractor had a small list of things (to complete); eight basic items you could break down into 50.”
The unit failed inspection again in December, for similar reasons as before.
With still no resolution however, Angiletta called the Office of the State Building Inspector, a branch of the state Department of Administrative Services. State Inspector John Tye went out with Zwick on Jan. 12 of this year and cited 33 building violations. On Thursday, Zwick sent a notice of violation to Arbor Energy Founder Bruce Owen, giving the company 30 days to correct those violations.
As the dispute continues, Angiletta said he just wants to see action.
“The bottom line is, I just want something that my parents paid for to work, and to keep them warm.”
mcallahan@record-journal.com (203) 317-2279 Twitter: @MollCal