A Cornton dad left without a working gas meter for 10 months says he has been left scared to put his heating on.
Kris McKechnie’s meter at his property went blank in April last year and despite an intervention from Stirling MP Alyn Smith last year and promises from operator OVO to address the issue, it still remains without a fix.
Mr McKechnie says the company have since arranged to visit his property four times to install a new meter, but have cancelled each of these on short notice - with the dad-of-one forced to take costly time off his work to stay in for engineers.
He now admits he’s at the end of his tether over the fault - and claims estimated readings taken since the meter stopped working are adding to the financial strain on his family.
He told the Observer: “I wasn’t really using a lot of gas over the summer - only really for dishes and taking showers - so it wasn’t really an issue but as we were getting into autumn, they were estimating bills well above what they should be.
“I went to Alyn Smith and the Ombudsman and they got the ball rolling on this. I got appointments to change over the meter; the first of these was in October but it got cancelled on the day, as did the next one in December.
“There was another appointment set for January which was cancelled and then finally the most recent one last week.
“Each time, I’ve had to take time off my work and I’ve now used up all of my annual leave so I’m having to take unpaid leave to sit in my house because I can’t risk not being here and it costing me £100.
“I know that the estimates done will be overestimated because everyone is watching what they are using now and if it goes on previous usage, then I don’t think that is very fair given we are all using gas differently than we did before the cost-of-living crisis.
“It’s getting to the point where my mental health is affected because my meter hasn’t worked now for 10 months and I have a partner and a three-year-old in the house where I’m scared to put the heating on.”
Mr McKechnie has been in the property for five years and admits his previous efforts to raise attention to the issue did yield some results, but has blasted OVO - and previous operators SSE - for failing to listen to his case.
“Nobody seems to be listening and they just think ‘we can just book him in another time’ but nobody from their complaints department has ever contacted me on this”, Mr McKechnie added.
“It’s a simple job and I don’t want to have to spend hours of my life on the phone but I think I’ve easily spent around 24 hours doing just that since all of this began.”
An OVO spokesperson said: "“We are sincerely sorry to Mr McKechhie for the time it has taken to change his meters. We have issued a goodwill amount in apology and booked a new smart meter installation appointment.”
