I’m a landlord and shortly after new tenants moved in I received a message one evening “Our hot water and heating isn’t working and I’m not sure why I’ve spoken to the energy company and they said we have gas so must be a boiler problem”. I did not understand why they would be talking to the energy company.
Anyway I visited the property the same evening because no heating in winter is an emergency, I discovered the tenants had decided to change energy suppler from paying by DD as previous tenants had done, to new suppler with prepayment, they had paid in advance to credit there account but due to some problem with the smart meters this didn’t happen.There gas and electric was cut off remotely by there new suppler when they took over the supply.
The tenants had managed to persuade the energy company to restore gas and electric but with only emergency credit that would last a short time.
The energy company had also told the tenants that having no hot water and heating was nothing to do with them as gas supply had been restored, hence why the tenants contacted me.
The boiler would not start because it had gone into lock-down mode due to gas supply being cut off, I reset the boiler and heating and hot water came on.
Can energy company’s cut of gas and electric without notice. I know as a landlord “No heating and hot water is considered as an emergency and thus should be resolved within 24 hours as an acceptable ‘reasonable time’.”
Sounds like you did a good job. Happened to me a couple of times. Energy company told my tenant ’ Landlord needs to get boiler checked as gas supply on ’ . Gas supply was not on , there was a problem with the meter which had closed the supply off !
Yes, I had some idea how prepayment works, the tenants only told me they had switched to prepayment when I arrived to look at boiler, the first thing I did was try the gas hob to confirm gas supply, the boiler has a big display stating error code and explaining how to reset (hold 2 buttons down for 3 seconds) plus they have the user manual.
I have a hunch the tenants went online and thought prepayment seems good and switched to it, then did nothing else till they found themselves with no gas or electric.
I have been renting out for about 10 years and had tenants do some crazy things, but having gas and electric cut off is new to me, I did not realize a smart meter can be converted to prepay remotely.
More control for the energy company.and the energy company don’t mind wasting your time and money.
In my case I knew it was the meter rather than the boiler but they would not speak to me as I wasn’t the bill payer. My tenant was great, understood the situation and insisted the boiler was fine. Meter was in credit but eventually reported as faulty according to energy supplier. I think it was a software issue, as I don’t think it was changed, just switched back on. I’m glad I never called (and had to pay) the boiler guy out, as they had wanted me to.