Just moved to a property with no gas

Nicboys

Anybody got any thoughts, I've just moved to a new house,which needs some modernising. We knew it had no gas,but there is a blanked of gas pipe coming into the house. It now turns out that after an engineer came out to look at it, it is dead. We now have to pay national grid nearly £900 to reconnect to the main supply in the street. I have however opted to reduce the cost by £500 to dig the hole myself !
Can anybody explain why we have to pay to connect to service that is existing to some extent,to then pay again to receive the gas !
On top of that they estimated it could take up to January to sort, nice thought spending winter months with only one electric fire in the front room and two kids

ic

They probably replaced the pipework out in the street at some point, and because your house wasn't connected, skipped it. Why spend time and money connecting a house which doesn't want a supply?

C_Mababejive

Thats privatization for you. The public get what the public want.

lemontart

It may be worth checking with national grid re digging your self as rules are changing an if you plan to do this after 1st December it may no longer be an option

Here is the exact wording

Removal of Customer Self Excavation Option for Domestic Alterations (Meter Moves):- As a result of safety concerns with customers self excavating in the vicinity of live services and the associated contractual implications, National Grid will be removing the option for our customers to self excavate and reinstate for all Domestic Alteration work (Meter Moves), this will be effective from 1st December 2012.

lemontart

As to reasons it costs there are lots

1 .Manpower to actually do the work.
2. Licenses and permits to allow them to physically put a spade in the ground from approximate authorities ie councils hse and so on. - see here for some information of the sort of charges that have to be paid for such works and why http://www.nationalgrid.com/uk/Gas/Connections/GasServices/LaneRental.htm
3.Costs of running the equipment and getting it to your property.
4. Costs of processing the paperwork of course as someone has to sit there pull up the maps and check with other utilities as to locations of their cables and pipes etc, allocate manpower to survey and do the work if require which all uses resources from the rent per sq foot that person sits in for the time they are doing said work to the electricity to run computer and so on.
5 And of course the cost of the pipe it's self as it will be a new pipe not re-connection - this is a new connection in this case.

As to paying to receive the gas - that gas belongs to the supplier not national grid who own the pipework, the supplier has to buy that from those who spend billions looking for it drilling for it etc and of course all these have costs too

C_Mababejive

Could there be the possibility of an insertion if the old pipe was 1" steel? I guess there is probably no flexibility in pricing.

lemontart

C_Mababejive wrote: »

Could there be the possibility of an insertion if the old pipe was 1" steel? I guess there is probably no flexibility in pricing.

Possible yes but all of the above still come into it and all quotes are subject to survey, Also vat became chargeable at full rate earlier this years under hrmc changes with added to all costs for customer, costs involved all increasing as those who are involved be it tax man, councils and the petrol we put into the vans go up in price and ofgem squeezes our costs and deliverable s as well wanting more for less.

C_Mababejive

Oh well..ho hum..gone are the days when we had the great and mighty British Gas Corporation who would turn up,dig up,fit you a new supply and meter and all for free at the point of use.. If you see Sid,tell him to come back..