Rambling rant ahead (my second of the day, see here for the other)
Getting rather annoyed, we had a 30 minute power cut this afternoon, meaning the builders who we had here had to leave early (after 15 mins sat doing nothing there's no point in them hanging around much longer).
This now means they'll not finish on Friday and need to come back on Monday, which causes knock on problems as Monday we're meant to be having new carpet layed and we don't want builders boots trampling all over it!
One powercut on it's own is occasionally inevitable, but over the last week it's felt like living in a thirld world country here (ok, not quite, but it's been a bloody pain).
Tue 11 July, power off for around 10 minutes mid-evening
Wed 12 July Power goes off about 10pm. My graduation ceremony is the next day and the whole family was wanting showers, hair washed etc. Mum was trying to sew dad's trousers and had to do it by candle light. We all went to bed hoping it would be back the next morning. (The automated "emergency line" said it should be restored by 1am)
Thur 13 July (day of grad ceremony). Power still off when we woke up, although had been on for approx 30 mins during the night as tumble drier had done half a cycle. We set up the camping stove in the garden for breakfast and sat tight waiting for the power to come back on. (Automated line said ETA 8am). 8am came and passed and at 8:30 I had no choice but a cold shower. Mum and dad went to grandparents 10 miles for their showers and to finish off dad's trousers.
Arrive at grad ceremony stressed, without being able to have a proper breakfast or get washed particularly well (great when you've paid a fortune for family photos to be taken).
We arrived home at 4pm, and the power was still off. It finally came back on at 5pm, so was off in total 18 hours (minus the 30 or so mins it came back during the night). The fridge had just been filled with frozen shopping, which all started to thaw out and although might have been fine, we didn't want to risk eating it, so most of that got binned.
Since then the power has been off on no less than 3 occasions for around 30 minutes each time, and on one occasion for just over an hour.
This is getting ridiculous. A couple of times it has just been half the village (fair sized place for a village, population circa 5,000), other times it has been the whole village plus one or two other nearby villages, and today it seemed to cover a fair area according to the list read out on their phone hotline.
It's worth pointing out that everytime the power has gone off has been during fine weather (no wind, rain, storm or anything).
It's getting to the point that every night when mum comes in from work she boils a full kettle and makes a coffee, and puts what's left into a flask just in case it goes off again.
What I don't understand is why after power in an area has been off 2 or 3 times that they can't send a letter to all their customers in the area appologising, detailing roughly what the problem is, and what they hope to do to mitigate the situation in the future - this would certainly put customers a little more at ease.
To rub it in, during the first evening powercut we tried phoning them to see what was going on. East Midlands Electricity have recently become/merged with Central Networks. East Midlands Electricity had been scrubbed from the phone book, but it took ages to find Central, it wasnt in the obvious place with all the other networks and they had the smallest pathetic entry compared to powergen etc with their 25% of a page advert - it took about 30 minutes to find by candlelight.
So, I think a complaint is order. Any of you complained to an electricity supplier before? Did anything come of it? Is it reasonable to expect some for of compensation or will they just say that because the power was off we werent getting billed for the supply and we've still only paid for what we've used?
I bet most people won't do anything about it and they'll get away with it, whereas in other industries there'd be an uproar - hell, evenen if email or web services stop working web hosting companies get a roasting from their clients within 15 minutes!
God, I need a drink after that.
Getting rather annoyed, we had a 30 minute power cut this afternoon, meaning the builders who we had here had to leave early (after 15 mins sat doing nothing there's no point in them hanging around much longer).
This now means they'll not finish on Friday and need to come back on Monday, which causes knock on problems as Monday we're meant to be having new carpet layed and we don't want builders boots trampling all over it!
One powercut on it's own is occasionally inevitable, but over the last week it's felt like living in a thirld world country here (ok, not quite, but it's been a bloody pain).
Tue 11 July, power off for around 10 minutes mid-evening
Wed 12 July Power goes off about 10pm. My graduation ceremony is the next day and the whole family was wanting showers, hair washed etc. Mum was trying to sew dad's trousers and had to do it by candle light. We all went to bed hoping it would be back the next morning. (The automated "emergency line" said it should be restored by 1am)
Thur 13 July (day of grad ceremony). Power still off when we woke up, although had been on for approx 30 mins during the night as tumble drier had done half a cycle. We set up the camping stove in the garden for breakfast and sat tight waiting for the power to come back on. (Automated line said ETA 8am). 8am came and passed and at 8:30 I had no choice but a cold shower. Mum and dad went to grandparents 10 miles for their showers and to finish off dad's trousers.
Arrive at grad ceremony stressed, without being able to have a proper breakfast or get washed particularly well (great when you've paid a fortune for family photos to be taken).
We arrived home at 4pm, and the power was still off. It finally came back on at 5pm, so was off in total 18 hours (minus the 30 or so mins it came back during the night). The fridge had just been filled with frozen shopping, which all started to thaw out and although might have been fine, we didn't want to risk eating it, so most of that got binned.
Since then the power has been off on no less than 3 occasions for around 30 minutes each time, and on one occasion for just over an hour.
This is getting ridiculous. A couple of times it has just been half the village (fair sized place for a village, population circa 5,000), other times it has been the whole village plus one or two other nearby villages, and today it seemed to cover a fair area according to the list read out on their phone hotline.
It's worth pointing out that everytime the power has gone off has been during fine weather (no wind, rain, storm or anything).
It's getting to the point that every night when mum comes in from work she boils a full kettle and makes a coffee, and puts what's left into a flask just in case it goes off again.
What I don't understand is why after power in an area has been off 2 or 3 times that they can't send a letter to all their customers in the area appologising, detailing roughly what the problem is, and what they hope to do to mitigate the situation in the future - this would certainly put customers a little more at ease.
To rub it in, during the first evening powercut we tried phoning them to see what was going on. East Midlands Electricity have recently become/merged with Central Networks. East Midlands Electricity had been scrubbed from the phone book, but it took ages to find Central, it wasnt in the obvious place with all the other networks and they had the smallest pathetic entry compared to powergen etc with their 25% of a page advert - it took about 30 minutes to find by candlelight.
So, I think a complaint is order. Any of you complained to an electricity supplier before? Did anything come of it? Is it reasonable to expect some for of compensation or will they just say that because the power was off we werent getting billed for the supply and we've still only paid for what we've used?
I bet most people won't do anything about it and they'll get away with it, whereas in other industries there'd be an uproar - hell, evenen if email or web services stop working web hosting companies get a roasting from their clients within 15 minutes!
God, I need a drink after that.
we havnt got a chance in hell have we 
