Previous landlord/owner decided to rip out the central heating/gas system and put in storage heaters for some unfathomable reason (cheaper for him i guess) as well ass general abuse and neglect the property.
I get central heating installed - gas chaps say gas is good to go has checked supply is there etc, just need a meter put in. Call a gas company, book in new meter for 22nd Feb. Chap comes, leaves a really cryptic note as to why he couldn't do it. Speak to the builders who were there at the time, who say he told them that the box he had was too big to fit. Doesn't match note, but ok, he spoke to them.. Note does say that in 2 weeks would be sorted.
3 weeks later, nothing has happened. Call gas company again, ask if any notes on system about why they couldn't do it. Nope, they re-book. I mention about box size, ask them to check that.
Next day they call back to cancel the appointment as it turns out there is no gas supply. I question why this wasn't bought up back in February.. they don't know, but say they will sort it there end. They call connections company and escalate it to get sorted, someone will call to book in gas set up in x amount of time.
X amount of time rolls by, no contact, call gas company back to find out whats going on, get given connections number. Call connections, get told that there is a ticket on our address but they can't talk to me as it's in Wife's name (can't have join accounts, i'm 3rd party) - but, someone else can call me and tell me all about it. So someone else calls me, confirms that there is a ticket on house, and that someone else would call me to get booked in to connect.
So someone someone else else calls me in a few days and i get booked in for a connection on 24th April from 8.30 -12.00.
I take time off work and get to the house nice and early yesterday to let them in. 1pm rolls by and no show.. so i call them up. They eventually turn up at 2ish, and say:
"hi, we're here to move the meter"
I question this, as we do not in fact, have a meter, and tell them why they should be here. They go and make a phone call and come back. There are two of them and they have a look, one wants to start digging up the front garden at massive cost, the other wonders around the corner, few minutes later comes back and tells the digging chap to go get him a tool. He then says to me 'fucking moron, always wants to dig.. it's all there, just the valve is switched off." 10 mins later, valve is on, there is a new cap on the pipe with a big red on off lever. I'm told all money would be refunded as there is no charge for this.
I'm quite happy with this outcome, and cheerily call the original gas company to get the meter booked in quickly, so we can get heating connected, and get hot water 4 months after buying house..
Spend 15 minutes on the phone. They have a slot for early next week.. aaannnddd.. they can't give it to me as i'm not my wife. Even though they have previously dealt with me, i'm on the "can do shit" list etc.. Have to get wife to call back, slot is gone, now we have to wait until May.
Great.
This has been a LutRant™
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This is why we only have the bill in the name of the person who does stuff (books appointments etc).
ie me.
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The mother of one of my students mentioned she could smell gas at the end of the driveway when she dropped off her daughter. I'd never noticed it before, but told her I would investigate. Cue forgetting about it and not smelling gas for about a week, when I catch a whiff when walking home and ring up the gas number.
Chap came round about 10 minutes later, and was very serious about working out where the gas was coming from. You could hardly smell anything but he drilled little holes all over the place, wandered around with a gas detecting thing and finally traced it down to coming out of an olde-worlde lamp post at the end of the driveway. The house isn't old enough for this lamp post to ever have been a gas lamp but hey ho. The lamp post couldn't be isolated from the electricity supply, apparently this was a proper emergency, so he called the gasbusters team around who promptly dug a massive hole on the opposite side of the road, fed a plastic pipe inside the copper one which had broken, and fixed the leak.
What amazed me was from the faintest whiff of gas you can conjure up a team of several burly men swarming around probing things and digging holes for a day, just in case the whole house goes up. He was deadly serious that the whole place could easily have exploded if the gas had built up in the void underneath the house and someone put the kettle on.
Might buy a lottery ticket tonight!
It got to the point where some customers would cotton on to it and make regular appointments for a gas engineer because they knew he'd never turn up and they'd make money out of it.
There is no 'H' in Aych, you know that don't you? ~ Wife
Turns out there is an H in Haych! ~ Sporky
Bit of trading feedback here.
What we don't have is a cupboard door that closes any more...
urgh...
...no.
They can't do it as builders haven't left enough room for something or other and the meter is not as they expected.. asked for another £250!
Told them to bugger orfff until I've spoken to builders and a neutral third party to understand what the problem actually is... Don't trust these gas chaps ever since they used my mug..
I suppose that is one excuse i can't really argue with (wasn't hurt) - i'm still pissed about it..