Make sure your supplier has a PEMs contract

C_Mababejive

Energy can be a confusing business. PEMs means post emergency metering services and specifically relates to gas. If you ring the gas emergency service because there is a problem with your meter then if there is a pems contract in place, the emergency Engineer may do whatever meterwork is necessary/exchange equipment and they internally bill your supplier/MAM.  You as a customer pay nothing and everything gets fixed for you. 

No PEMs in place? The Engineer (may)cuts your supply off to make it safe and walks away. You report back to your supplier and eventually they send someone to sort the problem. 

Many suppliers close their phone lines around 5pm weekdays and may not even respond /answer the phone at weekends. That means you will not get any service from them until they are open.

All major suppliers have PEMs in place. It tends to be the smaller suppliers who dont have it and thats why they can offer rock bottom tarriffs.

Always ask your new prospective supplier if they have PEMs contracts in place. The vast majoriy do but some dont. Be particularly careful if you live on an IGT site .

falcon12

We recently had this experience with Octopus Energy who, we found to our cost, don't have a PEMS ontract. The Network Operator emergency engineer who turned off the gas supply because we had a leak in the meter inlet pipe could have fixed the fault immediately if a contract had been in place. The Octopus contractor Providor turned up after 22 hours, changed the faulty part (and the meter for some reason even though it wasn't that old) then left our gas turned off and walked away saying we had to contact a local Gas Safe engineer to turn the supply back on and check our appliances. In all the gas was off for 24 hours, in Winter and we are pension age. The Octopus customer services closes down at 5pm Mon to Thur and 4pm on Friday and doesn't open till 9am. You can email them in an emergency but not everyone has this facility.

We want to change supplier to one with a PEMS contract to stop this happening again and wonder if there is a list available somewhere, otherwise it means asking each one individually.

jefaz07

C_Mababejive said:

Energy can be a confusing business. PEMs means post emergency metering services and specifically relates to gas. If you ring the gas emergency service because there is a problem with your meter then if there is a pems contract in place, the emergency Engineer may do whatever meterwork is necessary/exchange equipment and they internally bill your supplier/MAM.  You as a customer pay nothing and everything gets fixed for you. 

No PEMs in place? The Engineer (may)cuts your supply off to make it safe and walks away. You report back to your supplier and eventually they send someone to sort the problem. 

Many suppliers close their phone lines around 5pm weekdays and may not even respond /answer the phone at weekends. That means you will not get any service from them until they are open.

All major suppliers have PEMs in place. It tends to be the smaller suppliers who dont have it and thats why they can offer rock bottom tarriffs.

Always ask your new prospective supplier if they have PEMs contracts in place. The vast majoriy do but some dont. Be particularly careful if you live on an IGT site .

IGT’s are actually an exception to the rule. You can change one on an IGT regardless of PEMs and it gets billed to the IGT (GTC and the like) 
You’re right with the rest though. However, if you have a pre pay meter AND a PEMs the meter still won’t be changed in most areas. 

The comment above, I’d have changed the regulator for them anyway. I wouldn’t leave anyone cold if possible. This really only applies for regulators as you can put you’ve changed the washers on the job report. 

The meter however is serial numbered to that property and you have to put readings and such Into the computer, this ensures your bills are still the same. This can only be done if a PEMs job is raised and for it to be raised it has to have an indicator on the job. 

I’ve also changed a meter outside of PEMs as the customer was elderly and it was about minus 10 Celsius. Let the supplier sort the rest out when they’re open again.

Talldave

@jefaz07 the country needs more people like you in the industry!!

C_Mababejive

End consumers are largely unaware of these internal issues. The days of the "gas board" are long over. There are regulators and network companies owned by shareholders who dont act s charities. They seek to charge for contracts and services.