My sister moved to a new house, all was well until the power went off saturday. They were current on their bills. Seems they did not adjust for the new address and shut off power. Then they were told to turn on the power, and sent a crew. To the old address. Twice. Monday, still no power, all the food is spoiled. 100 degrees inside. So I was telling her to bill them for all the food, and go to small claims court. I told her to get a hotel room and bill them for that as well. I don't see how it's legal to disconnect power in 100 degree heat.
I'd kick up a fuss personally and keep pestering until they gave in, but law wise I'm unsure about the USA, they would probably have reimbursed you if it was in the UK.
It took me a while to understand how shutting down the power is connected with the inside temperature... damn, building insulation really isn't so popular in the US eh?
Have her raise hell. I'm sure they'll at least give her credit to the account for the problem. Not sure you can do much else.
How is it in any way possible to keep the interior temperature of anything cooler than the ambient temperature without exerting some sort of ability to actively cool the interior air. Insulation can only keep the interior temp from being as harshly affected by the exterior extremes. Having a thermos or cooler that is empty and sitting in the sun is not going to keep the air contained within any cooler unless there is something inside to act against the exterior extreme...
In Europe homes or at least nice ones are built with insulation against cold so the house will stay warmer inside than out without power. Still not what I'd call warm though. My home in Japan is built in such a way that in summer the rooms are kept "chilled" by the night air so that when you wake up it's normally a lot cooler inside than outside. This will last until about 10 or 11am before you need to use power to cool the house. In winter though it's fucking freezing. A bit of a draw back really We also have tripple glazed windows which is also not so common here. Japanese in general can't seem to grasp the fact that good windows just don't keep out the cold in winter but also keep out the heat and the cool air in at summer time. Yakumo
Its a bit like that where i am in the winter is relly cold. bit when it hot it sticky kind of heat its horrable i like the cold because you can warm your self up. when it hot its hard to cool down.:thumbsup:
I had somthing similar happen. There were some melted wires so they removed the box and the owner is responsible for replacing the parts(at least in the state I live in) Went 2 weeks without power.
Has she ring small claims back? They should atleast force the company to reimburse her the lost food. If they company aren;t complete assholes they could also get free power for a certain amount of time
The HVAC trained part of me wants to scream at this, but I won't and will instead say "You can have the most insulated walls/roof/floors in the world but heat transfer will still occur between the two sides. This will always happen since we can never bring the U-value (1/R-value used on insulation and other materials used) to zero."
In Spain, houses are made for being cooler inside than outside, since temperatures are around 100 F or so since always. So we are used to it.
Good luck getting anything from the power company. I've had friends who's TVs and eletronics were fried by a sudden surge and it was a bitch to get any money, most of them where already going to sue when the company gave up and paid. If her fridge was ruined maybe, but for the food? I wouldn't bet on it.
