Can i claim my money back from national grid?

PeterButterJelly

Hi!

The electrics in my house kept cutting out whenever i put on a heavy load, such as turning on the TV and using the laptop and phone chargers at the same time.

Eventually this got worse and worse. to a point where i got no power at all. I had to call an electrician out to check. They spent three hours trying to find the fault. It turned out to be nothing wrong with my house. It was the mains power line from the mains national grid running from the street to my house which was the problem.

We had to call the National Grid people to come and fix their problems. So up to this point, none of the fault falls to me. As it was the national grid line to my house which was faulty NOT the wiring in my house. I had to spend £140 on an electrician to find this out, and tell National Grid.

Do i have any right to claim my £140 back from national grid for a fault which was on their end? I've spoken to the guy on the phone and he insisted i am not entitled to claim any costs. To me it feels wrong, so i'm not sure what to do.

Any help or advice would be appreciated.

Kind regards,
Pete

spiro

I am not aware of any obligation under which you can claim compensation.

Ich_2

It will not be National Grid anyway!
It will be one of these companies, were you actually talking to the correct organisation?
http://www.energynetworks.org/info/emergencies/electricity-emergencies.html

Though there is no responsibility for them to pay your electrician's bill

lemontart

as others already say it is not National Grid you need to speak to on this at all

PeterButterJelly

Um Ok, this was not the type of response i was expecting from a well known forum. Are you guys serious? I am asking for help and advice and you guys just come back to me with sarcastic comments like that? I really have to prove my problem to you before i can get help?

Look, Yes i can provide a Invoice if you guys MUST see it to believe me. You can also email or call the electrician who came out to check. Google MJT Interiors (.co.uk) [sorry i'm not allowed to post links due to me being a new member]. Ask them about the call out they did on Friday 29th March 2013 at 3PM for a customer called Peter, North London.


I'm pretty sure you guys know what i meant when i said National grid! I called the local regional company in my area which was listed on the national grid website which is UK Power Networks.

I asked MJT Interiors (found them via Ratedpeople.com) to come out to find out why my electrics weren't working; and they discovered after about 3 hours the problem to be caused by something BEFORE the meter. Meaning it's nothing to do with my house. UK Power Networks came to dig up my street to find the fault yesterday. pictures can be found below

imageshack.us/a/img9/3563/dsc0103su.jpg
imageshack.us/a/img826/7506/dsc0102sa.jpg
imageshack.us/a/img32/8229/dsc0101si.jpg

[please add the http in front of the links, I'm not allowed to add links due to my account restrictions; for some reason the insert image button seems to count as adding a link as well ]

UK Power Networks gave us a power generator to power the house while they fixed the problem. Took them a whole day to fix it.

Seriously guys, this was not the response i was expecting from a reputable forum. I really would appreciate some expert opinions. It's really not my fault which caused the power cut as the fault was beyond the boundaries of my house. It was a faulty mains line on the street. So surely the UK Power Networks should be paying for the call out? Please people, i really need to sound advice. I can't afford to be paying for bills like this.

Pete

PeterButterJelly

Hey Ich, sorry i didn't notice your response amongst all the sarcastic replies.

So i definitely can't claim for the call out charge? Even though they caused the fault, and i have to hire someone to find out for them?

If what you say is true. then i guess there is nothing i can do but pay for it. But it just feels wrong.

chanz4

Nope as it was your choice to hire them

Fire_Fox

http://www.ukpowernetworks.co.uk/internet/en/help-and-advice/documents/customer_complaints_factsheet.pdf