RAGH! Just spent toooo long on the phone to call centres…

Right then, the heavily-edited story so far is…

– My Gas meter cabinet is falling apart.
– I want to build a new one
– On closer inspection I noticed that the meter isn’t fixed to the wall, but balanced on a brick instead.
– Not wanting to inadvertently cause a gas leak while demolishing old cabinet and building new one I called my supplier to put it right.
– Gas supplier said I needed to call National Grid instead
– Called National Grid, they said it had to be arranged by my supplier.
– Called Supplier back who called National Grid.
– National Grid wont do anything about it as there’s currently no leak so it’s not considered to be dangerous.

So essentially, I need to cause a leak or blow up the front of my house before they’ll do anything about it…

[looks at the playground insults thread to get some ammo for when I call back]

Sounds about right.

Ring them back and tell them you smell gas…

Typical.

Isn’t it Transco you need to contact?

If it’s any consolation, I had a similar round of finger-pointing when I had to get some work done on my electricity meter recently. Seems utility companies have shoulders like Coca-cola bottles.

The Transco website tells you to look at the National Grid site so it looks like it’s one and the same now.

Ring them back and tell them you smell gas…

they’ll send an emergency response crew out who will ‘make it safe’ by switching the supply off and put a big sticker on it saying ‘hands off’ and then you wait 3 weeks for someone else to turn up, say it’s safe and switch it back on again. You’ll then phone up and ask if someone can come and attach it to the wall as neither of the previous 2 visitors will see it as their responsibility.

Yeah you are probably right – probably not good advice.

It is now the responsibility of your gas supplier, although if not leaking could be an issue getting them out, however a broken meter box could get them there I believe.