We have, by some wondrous sleight of hand that I am not even aware of, managed to retain the tarif with EDF that was already in the house when we bought it. An electrician told us that this was very unusual - what he actually said was bof and a lot of silent whistling! This tarif loses EDF a lot of money because the canny french immediately turn everything off on a red day so they don't let you continue it when you buy a house.
What it means is that for 22 days picked by EDF between November and March the electricity is very expensive and for the other 340 odd days it is very cheap. Well, they are not stupid, the weather has been very very cold this week, - 10C yesterday and we have had 4 red days in a row.
Apparently, according to totalfrance.com, the fount of all knowledge french, they can only do 5 in a row and they don't do it at weekends and fete days. (Well if you don't do weekends, you can only do 5 days in a row..........duh.)
To show which is a red day, we have a red light in the kitchen that lights up. Except it doesn't. A kind electrician managed to open it and change the bulb and I think he checked that there was power to the bulb but I'm not sure now. So we assume it is on a cold day, and don't plan washing, bathing and electric radiators until Him Outdoors has been down to check the meters.
Last night it snowed - which actually makes it warmer today - but we still assumed it must be the fifth red day, but IT'S NOT. So I have been round switching on the radiators and put a load of washing in. A more normal day.
Because of the snow, the window man that was coming, finally, to replace a door that doesn't shut properly, is not coming. And the plumber that needs to replace something in the shower because they forgot to put the sealant in when they did it, hasn't rung to say if he's coming or not.......
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It's a very mean system isn't it? Especially being charged when it's really cold. We have a tarif which gives us slightly cheaper electricity from 12 midnight until 6am. As I am a bit of an insomniac I often make use of this by using the washing machine or doing ironing. Other than that we just get lots of power cuts.
ReplyDeleteIsn't it frustrating waiting for people to turn up to fix things? I know how you feel!
It always struck me that it should be illegal to have 'red' days in cold weather...when EDF spend a fortune persuading us to have all electric central heating......
ReplyDeleteAnd as for the excuses...Christmas is coming up...then the New Year...then the hangover from both....
Pity the artisan francais can't get the job done properly the first time.But that would spoil the fun.