Praise for EDF

[Gardian]

One of our neighbouring houses is owned by Belgians - residence secondaire. The owner's elderly mother & her friend have been down here for the last couple of weeks.

We returned around 14.00 yesterday from doing some shopping. Panic: juice off since 11.00 in their house. I went to have a look: all OK at the fusebox. Checked out the meter at the front gate: no readings, dead.  Rang EDF and was able to confirm no billing problems & re-directed to the breakdown number. The guy on the other end confirmed that despite being English, I wasn't entirely stupid (!!) and it sounded like their problem, i.e. 'their side' of the house. Callout placed: 4hrs-ish

Engineer arrived after 2.5hrs, which I reckon is pretty good considering how rural we are. One of the boxes inside the meter cabinet had shorted and was completely melted (I hadn't noticed it!) Not necessarily a big problem, but it needed the 'heavy mob', because the juice for the whole quartier would need to be knocked off. Within half an hour, I had a call from the centre to say that they'd be on their way imminently - ETA 1 hr. Then the eng rang: best route? Made it in just about the hour through some of the most rural roads you could imagine, with a really hefty wagon.

It took 45 mins to fix, with the juice off for half of that time. All in all, quite professional, I thought. Only worrying thing was the cause - couldn't get much out of the engies, except a Gallic shrug.  Oh and they wished Angleterre good luck for this evening. I think they meant it.