EDF!!!

I'm not happy with EDF, the electricity supplier, distributor.  I have waited since last October, nearly a year, for a new box to be fitted to my electricity meter.  It took a good while for my supplier, Ecotricity (good lot) to discover who might be responsible for changing over boxes, but by March 2008 I had contacted EDF to ask them to send someone to change over the box.

I had bought a new meter box by then (I have had that nearly a year as well, having bought it soon after first contacting Ecotriciy).  But the lady at EDF told me that it might be up to 4 weeks before someone came out and changed over the box. That seemed like a long time, but it would have to do.

But it has taken 5 months several telephone calls to EDF and eventually a complaint to EnergyWatch before things started moving.  A nice lady at EDF telephoned and asked me to describe the problem.  Having done that, an engineer was out within a couple of weeks to do the safety survey and by the end of the first week in August the job was done.

But ... a week or so after the new box was fitted (by a couple of young chaps from Morrisons contractors, obviously sub-contracted by EDF) I had a look inside my shiny new meter box and noticed that the meter clock was wrong by about 3hrs 40 minutes.  This was probably about how long it took the guys from Morrisons to fit the meter.  They had to disconnect the power (naturally) so that must have stopped the clock.  This clock is quite important as it switches the meter to Economy 7 during the night so that I get cheap electricity for the storage heaters.  

I contacted EDF, but the nice lady told me that it wasn't EDF's job to correct meter clocks!  But, but, I spluttered, surely the contractors should have told me that the meter clock would be wrong, to warn me to get it sorted out before winter set in.  She went off to consult someone and phoned me back a little while later: the meter clock would not have been affected by the interruption in power ...

I was (momentarily) speechless before I remonstrated again with the lady.  Since the meter clock is almost certainly powered by electricity (seems sensible to me) switching off the supply would stop the clock, but she could not see that ("I'm not technical").

I had to give up and speak to those lovely people at Ecotricity; they were a little miffed that the workers had not sorted out the clock, but they would get an engineer out as soon as they could.  There is some chance that this will happen before Christmas, I hope.

So, EDF.  It will have taken a year to sort out a meter box.  Sure, you didn't come on the scene until halfway through that year, but that is because of the obscurity of your role in this affair.  And once you did come on the scene, nothing happened quickly.  And it's still going on!

And Morrisons!  Those nice young chaps who were obviously in a bit of a hurry on a Friday afternoon!  They failed to complete their job ...

You have been warned!

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