House over 30 degrees at 11pm - must landlord pay for blind installation?
TLDR: does landlord have a responsibility to pay for non-cosmetic changes to windows in our flat to keep the temperature below 30 degrees.
We live in London in the top flat of a divided Victorian terrace. The Living room faces east and bedroom faces west. There are some stairs up from the bedroom to the living room, and above those stairs is a fairly large window with no blind. This means we sun directly into our house all afternoon and it heats up above 30 degrees in the heatwaves. It is not easily reachable as it sits high up above the stairs, otherwise we would just hang a blanket over it/fix a curtain.
Our bedroom also gets the sun all afternoon but we ensure we shut the window and blind (+ additional curtain we added) as necessary. However the window in our bedroom is a large casement window but with only a small top hung part that opens outwards. This means we get very little air flow in once it is cool enough to open windows in the evening.
Last heatwave it was too hot to sleep in the bedroom as it was still 32 degrees at 11pm. The flat was not going below 29 degrees at any hour of the day.
We’ve requested via our letting agent to add a blind to the window above the stairs as an initial fix. We have mentioned changing the window in the bedroom too.
The request for a blind has been refused. Apparently a builder (who knows our flat) said it was too awkward to add a blind to (which I thought was a builder’s job). However, the landlord said we’re allowed to fit it ourselves at our own cost.
Does the landlord have a responsibility to make these non-cosmetic fixes given the heat means our flat is not particularly habitable and we are unable to sleep in our bedroom at times due to the heat?