compensation for power cut

toadhall

just been looking around on the net and discovered that i can claim back £50 for being cut off for more than 18 hours (21 in total) and £50 for four or more cuts lasting 3 or more hours.
we are with southern electric but the number i have is shut today (of course), but will ring on monday to see.

methekidsandthecat

Hi Toadhall

I had not thought of claiming - we were off for just over 24 hours, also had power cut on Xmas Eve for 4 hours 40 mins. Not fun trying to do hair and make up before work yesterday morning by candle light!!

Won't they just say that they are not liable as the high winds were an act of God?

Me.

jessc_2001

Hi guys,

The companies all have compensations schemes for customers who are without supply for a number of hours - but this is normally approx. 24 hrs or more - you will need to check with whichever company maintains the grid in your area - not necessarily your 'supplier' (the company who you pay your bill to) but the company who maintains the actual grid - this could be EDF etc.. - you will, however, be able to get this information from your supplier and be prepared to fill in forms etc.....

budget_barbie

We recently were without power for almost 48hours. I phoned energy watch and was told we should be compensated, they handled it all, not 1 form to fill in.

However a few days later I then recieved a phone call from a fat cat at the energy company who explained that it was a 'considerable event' (high winds) and as there were many 1000's of people cut off I wouldn't really be entitiled to a penny.

However I stood by ground and pointed out that engineers had resored supply to ALL other surrounding properties arround 24 hours before us and we had simply been forgotten - they thought our power was restored. They had merged our phone call to report the power cut with the main high voltage fault so when the main fault was restored they left the area - ignoreing the tree that had fallen on our power line outside the house :-[

We got £50 which went towards replaceing some of my freezer food.

It's worth trying ! Energy watch was great http://www.energywatch.org.uk/

Best of luck

BB

toadhall

my frozen food is covered by the house insurance, i just need to itemise everything it and send them a costing.
with all the other things i had to do today i forgot to ring southern electric to see if they will pay out, must remember tomorrow

Mikeyorks

Electricity has to be off for 18 hours / gas for 24.

Bit more detail on electricity (Page 3 / Question 34) and Gas (Page 9 / Question 97). Change the Page number in the drop down box first - bit of a daft index that you can't directly link to individual questions! Typical utility support : :rolleyes:

http://www.energywatch.org.uk/your_questions/index.asp

Mikeyorks

But worth highlighting this bit as regards electricity outage :-

Your electricity supply company and your distributor do not guarantee a supply 100% of the time. They will not normally pay for damage to equipment, loss of frozen food etc. You will need to check your household insurance policy to see if you can make a claim

.... my bold bits, as this appears to be a usual question?