Residents of Central Volgograd House Freeze Without Heating and Hot Water
The issue with the heat exchanger was first proposed for resolution over a decade ago.
Residents of the apartment building at 7a Port-Saida Street in the very center of Volgograd have been left without heat and hot water during a bitter cold snap. According to the residents, the heat exchanger in the building has failed, and its replacement is very expensive. The management company insists that they wanted to replace the old device several years ago, but did not receive support from the residents at that time.
‘We haven’t had hot water for three days now, and the heating is barely working,’ complain the citizens. ‘The management company says the heat exchanger broke down, it can’t be repaired, only a new one needs to be bought! But the fact that it broke and can’t be repaired – that was said by a plumber, they didn’t call any specialized organization, and there’s no official document confirming these words. The management company proposes to buy a new heat exchanger, which costs around 650,000 rubles (approximately $7,200 at current rates), but its replacement is planned for the fall. Meanwhile, residents are being advised to buy electric water heaters for their apartments. It’s freezing outside, there are many children and elderly people in the building. Being in the apartments is simply hell.’
The limited liability company ‘Management Company Orbit 34’ confirmed the emergency situation but clarified that they proposed to solve the problem 13 years ago. However, at a meeting of owners, residents voted against replacing the already failing heat exchanger at that time.
‘Our heat exchanger is very old, more like a trough, so rotten,’ says Anastasia Shcherbina, director of the management company and a resident of the cold-suffering building. ‘In 2013, an inspection was already conducted by another management company, and an estimate was provided. Thirteen years ago, the previous homeowners association already proposed replacing this equipment, but the residents didn’t agree. At that time, replacing the heat exchanger with the installation of metering devices could have cost half a million rubles (approximately $5,600 at current rates). And it gradually deteriorated, deteriorated. A year and a half ago, we decided with another owner to take this building into our own hands because the roof is old. Everything is leaking, the pipes are rotten. Well, in general, in very poor condition. And we told all our neighbors, and everyone knew perfectly well without us, that our biggest problem is the roof and the boiler. Well, they call it a boiler, actually a heat exchanger. We fixed the entire roof last year. Well, not the entire roof, but all the problematic areas, that«s about 15 percent of the roof.’
As for the heat exchanger, at current prices, the cost of the device itself and the work for dismantling and installation was estimated at 597 thousand rubles (approximately $6,600 at current rates).
‘We prayed that the heat exchanger would last until summer. Because last spring we held a meeting, in June 2025 we opened a special account. According to the rules, money is transferred to it only after a year. That is, in June 2026. We told all the owners in our chat that the equipment is old, that it could fail at any moment. And the main thing is, you can’t just go and buy a heat exchanger in a store. It is selected individually for each building. Right now we have an old, tubular, terribly looking, patched-up one. They are being replaced with plate-type ones, and that’s completely different equipment. We’ve said a hundred times that it will have to be replaced, that the maintenance, repair, and servicing of common property is done at the expense of the owners. Now we are preparing a meeting, on it we will raise the issue of a targeted contribution to install this equipment. The meeting is being prepared quickly, but if it’s the same as in 2013, when residents voted against… When the building was constructed, they wanted to make it as comfortable as possible, installed one inlet for heating, the second for water heating through a heat exchanger. Now we are paying for this comfort. However, now in most apartments there are instant water heaters, we ourselves recommended installing them because the heat exchanger could fail at any moment. Which happened yesterday.’
