How do I get a new gas supply?

mrsvodka

Hiya,

We had our gas turned off by Transco a few years ago because we thought we could smell gas and called them out. We have been putting off getting it fixed for so long now because we have been worried about how much it will cost. The guy from Transco said he thought the leak was under our floor, so we would have to get the floorboards and concrete ripped up and it would be a big job.

Somebody in work said they had a similar problem a while ago but they were able to just leave the old pipes that had been capped and run new ones into the house elsewhere.

Would I have to contact Transco first, or a gas company, or just hire a gas fitter and ask him?

We've been using an electric oven because we have no gas and I hate it!! Our electricity bill has always been high as well.

My boyfriend has decided to stop worrying about the cost of these big jobs that we have been putting off because we worry about the cost and said we need to just get stuck into it now that we have a family to look after.

Sorry for going on, any help you could give us would be fantastic!!

spiro

They will have to run a new gas pipe from the gas main in the street. You need to contact your local gas network providor who is the only company that can do this. There is a general fee up to so many meters over that the cost will jump. Sorry I dont know the prices but it will not be cheap but you need to offset this against the descrease in elec costs which could be very large depending on how you used to heat the house and how you have heated it since you have had no gas (yuo dont mention heating only cooker).

mrsvodka

Thank you Spiro.

Yes, we have been using electricity hungry radiators and during winter small electric heaters which are even worse. We pay about £100 a month for gym membership, so we try to shower there as much as we can to get our money's worth out of it and also to try to use less water/heating at home.

After reading about them on here, we are thinking of switching to E-on to get an energy saving kit.

lemontart

did you actually tell your gas supplier that you were not using gas and had that account paid up & finished or have you still been paying the standing charges ? or was your gas turned off outside

mrsvodka

We told Scottish Power that our gas was capped (inside the house where our meter is) . This was a few years ago and we had a bit of an ordeal with them demanding money for gas we never used. Over the course of a couple of years we received countless letters from solicitors and bailifs about gas we owed them for, that we never actually used. I asked them lots of times to send somebody out because obviously out reading was nowhere near what their estimates added up to. They ignored this for ages and when they eventually did send somebody out to check the meter he was surprised that they had let it go on for this far and agreed that we were in the right.

The next week we received another letter demanding even more money and they denied sending anybody out. I ended up staying off work for a while as I was really worried about it and run down. I was scared to open the front door or answer the phone because we had that many different bailifs and solictors in contact.

In the end I threatened to take legal action against Scottish Power because I just couldn't cope anymore, and they wrote off our 'debt' and sent us a cheque eventually to repay us for gas we had been charged for and not used.

I think this is another reason we have delayed so long before sorting our gas out!

Sorry for the really long post.