How can energy suppliers be so useless?

[joth]

Today was the big electrical meter relocation day.

DNO arrived promptly 8.30am, 4 guys: 1 to work, 3 to watch. Job done by 11.

2pm come and goes, no sign of OVO's contractor SMSL. 3.30pm finally get a call saying their one and only engineer is unavailable, we're being rebooked for Feb 13. So over 3 weeks without a supply - that's going to have a lot of knock on costs to the schedule!

I escalate a complaint, get it reported as an emergency outage and after a bit of back and forth they agree, should be out within 3 hours. So my poor contractors electrician is still sat on site 10 hours after arriving, and still no sign of them.

And the cheek of it all: they say if I late cancel this emergency fix they'll charge me. But obviously they can late cancel and I get no compensation whatsoever for the expense incurred.

All this for a trivial job any of the 5 other electricians that have been there today could easily have done it.

 

And don't even get me started on the gas supply. They failed to remove the meter twice, and are still billing me the standing charge on a supply I shouldn't have.

 

Anyway, too late for me, but as catharsis any recommendations for a good supplier for build & renovation projects that's not entirely sh1t? My gut feel is British Gas would be as good a chance as any, as they might still have a reasonable network of their own engineers.

 

 

[ProDave]

Last supply move I was involved with, the DNO guys moved the meter, even though they shouldn't, so supply was back on almost immediately.

 

Suppliers meter man arrived a few hours later and went balistic, accusing me of moving it saying I am not allowed to touch it. I really don't think he believed me when I said it was the DNO guys wot did it.

[joth]

FFS Ovo, you've now missed the second appointment slot today, so I expect 2x compensations. Also: their webshite says their emergency line is open until 8pm but guess what happens when you call it? "Sorry, our offices are now closed. Please call back between 9am and 6pm"...

 

What a shambles.

 

Edited January 22, 2020 by joth

[joth]

24 minutes ago, ProDave said:

Suppliers meter man arrived a few hours later and went balistic, accusing me of moving it saying I am not allowed to touch it. I really don't think he believed me when I said it was the DNO guys wot did it.

 

I did jokingly ask the DNO why they don't do the meters too, and they had a lot of sore points about the whole thing. Referred to something "in the last few weeks" (regs chance since start of year perhaps?) that meant it's even more sensitive topic and they're not allowed to touch the meters at all.

[joth]

Eventually got hold of SMSL's emergency contact no. and they said.... they don't have any emergency booking in their system for our address. Brilliant. 

 

 

 

[jfb]

Nobody beats Thames Water for incompetence in my view!

[pulhamdown]

27 minutes ago, jfb said:

Nobody beats Thames Water for incompetence in my view!

There's a lot of competition out there.  

 

[SteamyTea]

26 minutes ago, pulhamdown said:

There's a lot of competition out there.

There isn't really, especially with water. I can only get supplied by the most expensive company in the country.

And this is in an area with more rain than anywhere else.

But the beaches are kept clean so that dogs can shit on them. So well worth £800/person.year.

[joth]

6 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

There isn't really, especially with water.

I'm imagining @pulhamdown was meaning a lot of competition for the "most incompetent utility co" award.

 

To continue my sorry tale, after 2 attempts and computer system reboot my emergency meter move was rebooked at 9am to be done before midday. Just had a call to say they're running behind and it'll be sometime this afternoon. I pointed out this is the fourth booking they've failed to keep for a single job. 

And we wonder why the smart meter rollout is going so poorly, with these companies in charge?

 

[Stewpot]

4 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

...£800/person.year.

 

Seriously? This suggests you have a leak. Extrapolating from my last Thames Water bill, yours equates to a daily usage of 900 liters per person per day. I'm only in a small terrace house at the moment, but my annual bill is a small fraction of yours.

[Jeremy Harris]

21 minutes ago, Stewpot said:

 

Seriously? This suggests you have a leak. Extrapolating from my last Thames Water bill, yours equates to a daily usage of 900 liters per person per day. I'm only in a small terrace house at the moment, but my annual bill is a small fraction of yours.

 

 

Water charges are expensive in Cornwall, a LOT more so than in some other areas.  Water usage there in summer rockets because of the massive influx of holiday makers, and it's the residents who have to foot the bill for all the infrastructure needed to supply this peak demand.

[Stewpot]

1 minute ago, Jeremy Harris said:

 

 

Water is expensive in Cornwall, a LOT more so than in some other areas.  Water usage there in summer rockets because of the massive influx of holiday makers, and it's the residents who have to foot the bill for all the infrastructure needed to supply this peak demand.

 

Maybe I misunderstood the line of the thread - I thought SteamyTea was complaining about Thames Water's prices. I did wonder what the reference to beaches was about.

[Jeremy Harris]

14 minutes ago, Stewpot said:

 

Maybe I misunderstood the line of the thread - I thought SteamyTea was complaining about Thames Water's prices. I did wonder what the reference to beaches was about.

 

 

I think that @SteamyTea was referring to his local water price in West Cornwall.  We lived there for many years and water/sewerage charges are ludicrously expensive, have been for some years now.

[SteamyTea]

3 minutes ago, Stewpot said:

Seriously

Yes

1 minute ago, Jeremy Harris said:

residents who have to foot the bill

Yes

 

It is down to having 5 million +  visitors a year, with a resident population of around 600,000.

All that has to be clean up before it hits the sea, and as the vast majority of the population is within a mile of the sea, it is expensive to pump it inland, clean it, then pump it back again.

 

Thames water charges £1.35/m³ for water, £0.87/m³ waster water.

South West water charges £1.85/m³ for water and £3.58/m³ waste water.

Now it is also worth remembering that we get a lot of rain, we get charged for that too.

 

There is currently a vote of the local population about how often dogs are allowed on the beach.  If past votes are anything to go by, they will be allowed on all beach most of the time.

I pay a lot to make sure the beach stay clean, then people come along and let their dogs shit on them.  Really is hopeless sometimes.

[Gone West]

55 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

There is currently a vote of the local population about how often dogs are allowed on the beach.  If past votes are anything to go by, they will be allowed on all beach most of the time.

I pay a lot to make sure the beach stay clean, then people come along and let their dogs shit on them.  Really is hopeless sometimes.

Some of the beaches around here are dog free from 1/5 to 30/9 others aren't so we choose the dog free beaches. Why some people think it's ok for their dogs to crap on the beach God only knows. Even when there are clear signs banning dogs owners still allow them to run off the lead.

[joe90]

It really annoys me that bad dog owners get away with this kind of behaviour and I get tarred with the same brush (as a responsible dog owner).

[Stewpot]

1 hour ago, SteamyTea said:

 

 

 

South West water charges £1.85/m³ for water and £3.58/m³ waste water.

 

 

OK. Somebody mentioned Thames Water, and I thought your comment related to that. You do have much higher charges, but even so, a bill of £800 per person per year does represent quite high usage.

 

But on the subject of dog shit... I don't have a dog, but I am a dog-lover, know several people who have them, and often walk with them. One of my pet subjects is the bags of dog shit that some owners seem to think will improve the amenity of a place if they hang them on fences, branches and gate posts for other people to admire. Or leave them in car parks, by benches, or just put somewhere nicely where we can all benefit from them. I just don't get it. What are these people thinking?

[ProDave]

14 minutes ago, Stewpot said:

 

OK. Somebody mentioned Thames Water, and I thought your comment related to that. You do have much higher charges, but even so, a bill of £800 per person per year does represent quite high usage.

 

But on the subject of dog shit... I don't have a dog, but I am a dog-lover, know several people who have them, and often walk with them. One of my pet subjects is the bags of dog shit that some owners seem to think will improve the amenity of a place if they hang them on fences, branches and gate posts for other people to admire. Or leave them in car parks, by benches, or just put somewhere nicely where we can all benefit from them. I just don't get it. What are these people thinking?

I am not a dog lover but we were dog sitting.  We took them on a 3 mile circular walk.  Soon into the walk the dogs did their stuff so we used the bags.  Not wishing to carry a steaming bag of dog shit for 3 miles, I hung it on a branch to collect on the way back.  When we got back we found some kind soul had taken our bag of shit.