any compensation following power cuts?

sjaypink

hi not sure if this is the best place to post but..............

my street has been getting power cuts fairly frequently for the last 5 months. it had been ok for the last 3weeks but we had another 3 hour one last.

im kind of asking in advance really, rather than for the previous cuts (which i guess ive left too late to do anything about), but can you claim any kind of compensation back from the electricity company?

the obvious thing is the freezer foods of which i have chucked alot away because of this, but also at times quite a bit of fridge food has been ruined. plus on a several occassions i have had to do a 10 mile round trip to my mums house to sterilise the babies bottles........

any ideas/ advice/ experiences?

thankyou in advance

espresso

I believe that it has to be off for 18 hours before you can get any compensation. Cuts of 3-4 hours should not be a problem for most freezers and your contents insurance should cover any large losses.

sjaypink

espresso wrote: »

I believe that it has to be off for 18 hours before you can get any compensation. Cuts of 3-4 hours should not be a problem for most freezers and your contents insurance should cover any large losses.

thanks, i dont have insurance. yeah the freezer was ok from last night, but what has been happenning is that it goes for 3hours, back on for 2, off for 4, back on for 6 etc.
there was one period where we had electric on for 30hours in a 3day period, (beginning the day of weekly asda shop :mad: ) and the fridge and freezer both stank, all the food was soggy etc. certainly no where near fit to eat.

the 18hour rule seems ridiculous, if a shop had a power failure, they would surely have to throw out all their chilled and frozen long before 18hrs............

on a different note then (maybe i should do this on a different board?!) if i took out contents ins. today and then these cuts go on again for the next few days, can i claim that soon? i know thats what insurance is for but it doesnt quite seem right that id be taking out ins. to cover something that i know is more than likely to happen? hmmmmmmmmmmmm, guess its not illegal though?

helwarren

Each network supplier should have standards of practice where they pay out in the event of power failures, E-on (my area) have one for multiple interuptions -if power off for more than 3 hours on 4 different occasions in 1 year (starting 1 April) you are entitled to £50
http://www.eon-uk.com/distribution/standardsofperformance.aspx -click on notice of rights.
Presumably all suppliers offer the same or similar guarantees

As said before as long as you don't keep opening your freezer to check it then it should be ok. Problem with contents insurance is the excess you have to pay - although having used to work for a complaints dept at an electricity company it never ceased to amaze me how many bags of prawns and whole salmons, legs of lamb etc people can get in their freezer! LOL:rotfl:

Worth writing letters or sending e-mails though -has been known for them to make the odd ex-gratia payment if your persistent, particularly if close to failing a standard.

sjaypink

:rotfl: yeah salmon & meat joints. hmmmmmmmmmmmm................ :dance:

no im not asking to sting anyone, just some recognition that this has been ongoing for 5 months & is a pain in the !!!!

ill check out the suppliers website, thanks

sjaypink

sjaypink wrote: »

no im not asking to sting anyone, just some recognition that this has been ongoing for 5 months & is a pain in the !!!!

that said a*s! by the way- nothing ruder!

rotti1967

I was going to post this very subject but i will just post it here. surely these companies should give you some warning about possible outages.

My electric has just came back on about 45 mins ago and it went off yesterday it happens all the time where i live.

Im not after any compo all i want is for them to get their finger out and get whatever is causing the outages fixed.

who do i get in touch with to complain my electricity firm or someone else. and if iam not happy with their response who else can i get in touch with.

glasgow_DFW

it is usaly not the co turning off the power all over the place, the most common reason is vandilisem tot eh substations or for teh longer outages someone has melted themselves to the equipment and the suppy has to be off to retrev the remains.

If it was planed outage they would try to tell you in advance

rotti1967

surely i can make a complaint to someone im sick to death of it going off whenever it likes. if it is a planned outage fair enough, but i need to upgrade my pc's bios and if the electric were to go out while doing this my pc would be screwed.

is there someone i can complain to regarding this apart from the electric company as i doubt id get much joy complaining to them.

Krasnoludek

Hi
I used to help out in the customer complaints section of the local distribution board. As I recall the 18 hour rule is correct but they can and do make ex gratia payments and are willing to look into peoples issues such as this with no fuss.

I would say write them a letter and keep a note of all the outages, the more pleasant your letter the nicer the reply, thats for sure. We used to get a lot of people trying it on, and being very nasty so a nice letter wont be ignored!


K xx

Choc

sjaypink wrote: »

thanks, i dont have insurance. yeah the freezer was ok from last night, but what has been happenning is that it goes for 3hours, back on for 2, off for 4, back on for 6 etc.
there was one period where we had electric on for 30hours in a 3day period, (beginning the day of weekly asda shop :mad: ) and the fridge and freezer both stank, all the food was soggy etc. certainly no where near fit to eat.

the 18hour rule seems ridiculous, if a shop had a power failure, they would surely have to throw out all their chilled and frozen long before 18hrs............

on a different note then (maybe i should do this on a different board?!) if i took out contents ins. today and then these cuts go on again for the next few days, can i claim that soon? i know thats what insurance is for but it doesnt quite seem right that id be taking out ins. to cover something that i know is more than likely to happen? hmmmmmmmmmmmm, guess its not illegal though?

I have a shop and yes ive had this problem..Usually its not worth claiming as the excess is usually more than the cost of replacing the food.And then theres the problem of insurance going up the next year for making a claim...