When we bought our house the electricity was disconnected as it had been empty for some time. We never bothered putting it back on again as we didn't want to pay the standing charge for an empty house.
As our project is due to commence anytime soon I thought I'd better try and get it back on the grid. I have read some horror stories about it costing thousands to get reconnected, or how EDF would refuse to connect unless the house was fully rewired first or that we'd need a boitier de chantier. I was therefore a bit worried when I contacted EDF and casually asked for them to reconnect the house to their lowest tarif.
They went through the usual questions about what appliances, heating etc we would have, how many people living there etc. I gave simple answers and signed up for 6kw. The chap was very keen in putting me onto his colleage who could help with our renovation by obtaining quotes. I reluctantly agreed as I thought it might help smooth the reconnection process (I tried to ignore my husbands impatience and hand waving as I gave light details of the renovation to the keen sales chap).
Anyway the EDF man said an appointment would be made for someone from ERDF to come round and reconnect.
A few days later we had the phone call and an appointment was made for within a week. On that day I decided I would go down to the house to meet the electrician - try my female charm and all that...we joked about how I could convince him that the house really was habitable and yes I did want to live there soon.
Now me of all people made a big assumption...and an erroneous one at that..in fact the electrician was a lovely lass. We had a great chat about children (she has a little boy same age as one of mine) and we talked about everything from English food to our love (or madness) of renovating old properties.
She swiftly took off the old meter and replaced it with a nice shiny new one, made a phone call and then said that should be fine now. Here is my lovely new meter on a very skanky looking board!
I carefully tried the light switch not having any idea whether that would work or not…and…voila we have electricity. I
I think it cost me 46 euro connection fee. I’m not sure if we will still need the boite de chantier as we’ll need to move the manky power supply downstairs and replace it with a newer one but I’m hoping that won’t cost a small fortune.
I have to say I was mightily impressed with EDF and ERDF! Very efficient indeed!