What Do You Do With These Sort Of Jobs.....

[ProDave]

Call today from a landlord I have done work for before.

New tenant complaining about high electricity bills (heating is gas)

Tenant has called the Hydro (our DNO).  they hydro guy came and looked and gave her some BS about "there's a power surge in a light fitting" (was he winding her up or is he a muppet?)

So I'm now expected to go and sort this "power surge" and reduce her bills.

Do you:

a) tell the landlord he is the one talking BS and not bother?

b) Go and humour them and have a look, and report nothing wrong and collect an hours labour?

c) Try the placebo effect, go and "fix" the offending light and charge them even more?

Another one, by coincidence also came in today.

A holiday cottage heated by an economy 7 electric storage boiler.  I've already been before, checked it all out. Ensured the time clocks are set so it only heats the store during the off peak times, and installed a room thermostat to try and run the heating more efficiently.

Well my plumber mate called me today, because he's there investigating why it is costing so much to run.  

So in spite of having everything checked she just can't accept that it really IS costing £100 per month to heat her holiday cottage.

So what do the rest of you do?

 

[Apache]

If it helps we have a 3 bedroom stone built cottage. All night storage heaters. All hot water made using electricity. Electric cooker. I have a welder and lots of fun tools.

We pay £90/month for electricity and have no gas supply.

I'd be mad paying £100 per month for electricity if I had gas to buy on top, unless I lived in a mansion...........

 

[Evans Electric]

Have to straight with people Dave so I wouldn't  join in with the "Power surge light fitting "   I'd take a look , see if theres a 500w flood blazing away at the back or something similar.  Light left on in loft/cellar etc.       Next door tapping their power across the loft .   Charge for time .     Thing is,   leccy is very expensive these days .

I just had a £300 bill  , went to the meter to check if the estimate was excessive , it wasn't,  wheel was spinning quite fast , it seemed .    No cooking going on , had a look round ,  lounge  2 wall lights & TV   ......Hall 1 light..........kitchen 1 5ft fluoro  ..office , PC ...monitor  and that was it.  

Grabbed the quality clip-on and took a reading at the meter .....  1.8A   :C     Panic over .

Off peak problem  you need to know what the tarriff is  I guess ..........all electric will be expensive .  

Re:   Apache's post  ..I'm averaging £100  / month  for leccy , winter quarter  plus gas central heating    

 

[Sharpend]

Well I'd explain that a power surge is a freak of electricity generation similar to tidal surges being a freak of weather patterns, it's a natural phenomena that I can't control!!

On the holiday cottage, I'd explain that in this country the more you have the more you have to pay, so if she wants to reduce the bill sell the cottage!!

Happy days!

 

[sprocketflup]

I wouldn't try the placebo effect that you mention above myself, as you will then be the focal point for everything else that goes wrong with the system IMO

 

[Steve3948]

Went to an electric E7 Aga a few years ago, same problem, massive bills.

After much hunting around I found an integral time clock inside a metal clad Haget board, looking at it I could see that due to power cuts over the years the clock was 12+ hours adrift.

It was charging during the day and top up at night. The clock had no battery back up so I recommended a clock with battery back up, landlord of barn never came back as she was not the one paying the ekectric biill.

 

[Sharpend]

Can somebody explain the point purpose of an AGA? I've got a customer who's getting one,an all electric one and the running cost is £30 per week? What's the benefit of these?

 

[Sidewinder]

PD the DNO guy is a "See You Next Tuesday".

He has no clue, and TBH, for that comment he should be sacked.

What you do is up to you, personally if I was asked to investigate, investigate I would and provide a written engineering report of my findings.

 

[Steve3948]

Can somebody explain the point purpose of an AGA? I've got a customer who's getting one,an all electric one and the running cost is £30 per week? What's the benefit of these?

Its a statement thing.

Oil, Gas, Electric they are all bloody expensive to run, but most people that own them are not short of a few bob anyway.

Almost all our clients have them.

 

[NozSpark]

Also you could have a faulty circuit... maybe a l-e fault on a non RCD protected circuit?

 

[binky]

could always fit cheap surge suppresor from Denmans if they don't want to be persuaded that you're not talking BS.

 

[Andy™]

Also you could have a faulty circuit... maybe a l-e fault on a non RCD protected circuit?

or even an L-N but not enough to trip MCB / fuse

 

[Steve3948]

If thats the case they should be more concerned about the safety of the installation than the electric bill.

 

[NozSpark]

If thats the case they should be more concerned about the safety of the installation than the electric bill.

Could be one in the same :innocent

 

[Andy™]

probably never had any PIR/EICR carried out in its life

 

[ProDave]

I'll let you know what I find when I go there, probably not until next week.

 

[SLIPSHOD & SLAPDASH]

Just had an email that its bill time so submitted gas & leccy readings and had a look through my charts. We used about £100 of gas a month through the winter. The electric seems too low, just a couple of pounds a week so need to check i am correct. There are no kids here, the commonly used lights are all 4w led, all the outside security lights are Led.The cooker is gas.  We have been using a couple of 1kw electric heaters rather than the gas boiler ( think we will  up this) . Both show as below average for this area.

 

[pewter]

my winter bill has come in .

Nov-Feb.   Apparently it has averaged £5.04 a day for electric

+ Gas

For a 4 bed house, underfloor heating in bathroom, tumble dryer on constantly, couple of electric rads sometimes.

 

[Apache]

I pay the same all year so it builds up in summer and I use more in winter. I am astounded how much electric some of you guys are using (especially when you consider that I am on Economy 7 and the daytime units cost me more money so when cooking etc).

 

[Evans Electric]

my winter bill has come in .

Nov-Feb.   Apparently it has averaged £5.04 a day for electric

+ Gas

For a 4 bed house, underfloor heating in bathroom, tumble dryer on constantly, couple of electric rads sometimes.

Not too bad  there Pewter

Just re-checking the bill , seems its for 10th Oct- Nov - Dec - Jan   so 114 days    = £2.69 / day     or  £ 83 per winter  month   

With N.Power

Leccy is still a rip off though.