No one should have to go without hot water in their house

IN this day and age, no one should have to go without hot water in their house.

But that was the situation faced by James and Winifred Sanderson, of Edinburgh – for a full five weeks.

ScottishPower sent four engineers to look at their white meter heating system and James spent more than £200 on plumbers who put in three different thermostats. And still no hot water. It got to the point where ScottishPower reckoned the plumbers were to blame, while the plumbers said they were doing what was asked, the new kit they were installing worked fine, why wasn’t the problem solved?

Not being an expert heating engineer (few of us are) James got in touch with Raw Deal.

We managed to warm up some response and ScottishPower managed to warm up the water.

A ScottishPower spokesman said: “We arranged for one of our customer liaison officers to visit Mr Sanderson.

“We explained that there was no fault on the metering side and he’d have to arrange for his own electrician to check the internal supply. Mr Sanderson thought that we would arrange for an electrician to visit.

“We’ve reviewed the case and as a goodwill gesture agreed to pay £100 towards the electrician’s visit and an additional goodwill payment of £100 for the inconvenience.”

Sometimes it is difficult to unravel where a fault lies. But with a little bit of polite negotiation and encouragement to do get the best outcome for a customer, a solution can be found.