Kathleen turns up the heat over meter
Kathleen
Hardie wanted to go green with her new home heating system – but she was soon seeing red when she couldn’t afford to run it.
In November the pensioner had five new panel heaters installed by the Greener Energy Group at her house in Inverurie, Aberdeenshire.
Her old electric storage heaters were inefficient and on their last legs. It was time for an upgrade before the worst of winter set in.
She took a bank loan out to pay the £7700 cost of the system and was delighted when the heaters were fitted.
It was then that Kathleen noticed the alarming speed that the meter seemed to be turning at.
“I soon discovered I was using more than 60 units of electricity a day,” she said.
“I called my supplier SSE and was shocked when told I had used £124 worth of power in two weeks.
“There is no way I would be using that much electricity.”
Kathleen then turned the temperature of the heaters down to see if that made any difference.
But the meter kept spinning at the same speed.
Kathleen said SSE looked into the matter.
They told her they could find nothing wrong with the meter but they would monitor it for a month.
“There is no way I could have afforded to pay the power so I had to switch off the new heaters, right at the coldest time of year.
“I ended up using a coal fire and plug-in radiators instead.”
When Kathleen called Greener Energy she was told there was nothing wrong with the heaters and that the problem was with the power company.
Kathleen tried to cancel the order and asked for her money back.
Instead she was informed it would cost a further £500 to have the heaters removed and she would still have to pay the original £7700 cost of supplying and installing them.
In frustration, Kathleen contacted Raw Deal and the matter was soon sorted.
It emerged that the problem was the new heaters were incompatible with her old type of meter.
SSE installed a new meter last week and also refunded Kathleen £94.
An SSE spokesperson said: “We take seriously any customer complaint and work hard to put things right.
“In this instance, a customer had new panel heaters installed by another company, which did not make her aware that they were incompatible with her current meter type.
“SSE has since visited the property to change the customer’s meter.
“However, owing to the delay in offering the customer an appointment, as a gesture of goodwill SSE has voluntarily credited the difference in price between the previous meter standard rate and her current standard rate to ensure the customer is in no way financially disadvantaged.”
Kathleen is now looking forward to affordable energy at her home. “Thank you, Raw Deal, for getting this fixed,” she said.
“I was getting nowhere and you certainly hurried things along.”