Moving my Electricity and Gas Supply

If you've followed my house journey for the last few months, you'll have seen I was met with utter shock and heartbreak at the state of the utility room. It's ended up becoming a big renovation project, converting it into a downstairs toilet and smaller utility room. I shared the full plans here, but the first project to get completed was a supply adjustment for both the electricity and gas. 

I switched my electricity supply from E-On to British Gas, quite quickly after moving in, so all my services would be under one company. I thought from there it would be a simple case of them coming to move the connections and meters outside, as it was just to the other side of the wall. I needed them to be moved, in order to create the space in the room to have enough room for the downstairs toilet. Sadly, as with everything in a house, it's not quite that simple, but they were able to point me in the right direction. 

Starting with the gas supply, I had to contact Cadent Gas. Cadent required a form to be completed online, followed by a phone call to discuss and then payment in full. Like I said, I was moving supply from the inside wall to the outside wall, with very little cosmetic changes, and only a small alteration. As I wasn't 100% confident of the work required, I was informed I could arrange a site visit prior to selecting a date, with a promise of a full refund if the work was going to be different or more expensive. I paid the full amount, which was £748.80, then a lovely man came out to inspect the site. He confirmed the price and discussed the work, and whilst it was what I wanted, they wouldn't have been able to move the pipes behind the meter, nor the old pipes. Ultimately, I decided to cancel the job as instead of having a shorter cupboard to cover the boiler, I could just have a floor length one instead. 

Moving onto the electricity, I had to go through Western Power. Again, same sort of job but they asked a lot more questions and I didn't have a clue. I requested they come out to view the property and they did which was great. I went for the full package through them, which included all expenses, costing £1,095.00. It would defintely be cheaper to take the drive up myself, and source my own excavation team. The only expense that is compulsory to go through Western Power is £761.86. 

The work was booked in sooner than I anticipated which I was very grateful for, and they were able to be flexible around my shifts. In the end, the excavation team came one day and dug up the drive, leaving it safe to continue to use the rest of the house, and were there about an hour. The next day, the connection team arrived and turned the power off. They turned the power off bright and early, before moving the supply, installing the outside box and leaving it unconnected. It was then down to me to organise the supply reconnection, which I'll talk more about next week. 

I then got a phone call saying that the refitter wasn't going to be coming back that day to sort the drive, to which I was quite shocked at because I was informed it would all be completed the same day. Shortly after finishing on the phone, they ended up arriving, so it all got put back together as expected anyway, just slightly more stressful than it needed to be. He was very meticulous and slowly fitted the jigsaw back together, but there were a few broken and chipped bricks. He ended up returning the next day, whilst I was at work. Sadly, they're not quite the same colour but it's a close match. 

Overall, it is an absolute pain to organise and the information available is significantly lacking, but once started, the process was smooth sailing, all staff involved were lovely and I am very pleased with the final product.