fidobsa

I have not been in Hungary much lately. This is partly because I have hardly any firewood left there but I have plenty at the Croatia property. I was also away for a month in Austria, house-sitting. When I got back from Austria there was the usual pile of bills plus a card from the post office to collect an item of mail concerning EON. I paid the urgent bills at the post office in town but did not get around to going to the village PO to take the card. I thought it would probably not be much use anyway as I would be unable to read it.

I only stayed a couple of days then went to Croatia for about 3 weeks. My washing machine is still in Hungary so I had to go back when I ran out of clean clothes. I got back to Hungary yesterday to discover the electricity was not working. I checked that nothing had fused or tripped but it was all OK. I could not phone EON because I no longer have a functioning Hungary mobile phone and the portable landline phone won't work without electricity. I therefore had to drive to the EON office in Nagykanizsa. I got there at 12.50 only to find they were closed. There were people waiting outside though so I guess they were just closed for lunch. They opened at 1 pm and i was confronted with the usual ticket machine menu. There was also a reception man there though so I asked him if anyone speaks English. There are about 20 clerks there so I thought there might be one who spoke English but evidently not. After a few minutes he fetched me to a phone and I got to speak to someone elsewhere (Budapest perhaps) who spoke English. She was not too clued up and did not know why my electricity was not working. She did say she would get someone to come to the house within the next few hours. She also said I owed about 9000 ft although she was not saying I had been cut off because of this. She arranged for the office to print out a "check" for the outstanding amount so I could pay it that day.

I paid that bill and went back to the house. Now I had more time to look round I discoved the cable from pole to house had been cut off and thrown into my front lawn. This had evidently been done by EON so why did they not have it on record? Before I went to town I had taken the card to the village post office but they didn't have anything for me. Perhaps such items are returned to the sender if not claimed within so many days?

Two men from EON arrived at about 5 pm. It looked promising as they had a pickup truck with ladders etc but they turned out to be as useful as a chocolate teapot. They were telling me that the wires are no good. I didn't think they would be much good after being cut in half! The upshot was that I am now supposed to go back to the EON office with an interpreter and they will explain what work has to be done before they are willing to re-connect me. For all I know it might mean a complete rewire. I have replaced the old aluminium wires with copper but the basic circuit is unchanged. There is no consumer unit so all sockets and lights are on one circuit, with one trip switch before the meter and none after the meter. It would be a big job to add extra live wires to split off individual rooms as bigger bore conduit would be needed. I would probably have done that work eventually if I had been keeping the house long term but when I decided to move I hoped I could avoid it.

The power must have been only cut off in the last few days as the stuff in the freezer was still half frozen. I have given a bag of frozen food to my neighbour and will have to try to use up the rest before it goes off. I had fish fingers for breakfast this morning!

wolfi

OMG!
Can't you get someone to translate that letter from EON for you?
If you weren't there for a longer time they might have sent you some info to which you should have reacted?
Wish you all the best ...

PS:
A friend of ours had financial problems a few years ago and didn't pay his electricity bills for some time - so in the end they disconnected him.
When he got money (a small inheritance) and paid the outstanding sum (plus interest and you know what ...) they told him that he needed a "new installation" following the new safety rules, fuses, wires etc - that cost him several hundred thousand HUF.

fidobsa

What letter? The one they didn't give me at the post office?

almafak

Several of the staff at E-ON Nagykanizsa can speak English but seem unwilling to do so. The usual response is Beszélsz németül? (can you speak German?). I had spent weeks trying to get the electricity supply to my zártkert transferred to me. I finally received the contract yesterday and the accompanying letter told me that there was to be an inspection of the wiring on March 24 between 12:00 and 16:00. The wiring is in good condition so I am hoping it will pass.

Unclaimed registered mail is returned to sender if you do not collect it by the date written on the claim card (about 5 working days).

duztee

Wiring is one of the nightmares of living in Hungary.
The companies are trying to drag the supply up to an acceptable standard.

At last years meter reading the guy told me one of my meters was out of date and would be replaced. When two chaps arrived to fit the new meter they said they could not do it because the supply wires were undersized and would have to be replaced before they could change the meter.

A week later a full crew arrived and changed all 4 supply wires ( I don't know the size of the old ones but they did seem incredible small to be supplying a whole house) of course Hungarian rules are that the wires must run inside the wall and not just fixed on the outside, so fitting 4 new much larger diameter wires through the conduit was difficult and left a few holes in the wall which they don't repair.

Only up side was all the work was free and I now have 32 amp main fuses instead of the old 16 amps.

fidobsa

That's interesting. They did put in a new meter about a year ago, one that they read by taking a photo. The wires from the meter are very thin in my place and are hidden behind the meter board. The installations I have done in UK all had these wires (called meter tails) on the outside and my usual practice was to run new meter tails of typically 25 square mm from the new CU to Henley blocks and connect the old meter tails (usually thinner) also to the blocks. The electricity company would then have the option at the next meter change of bypassing the blocks and connecting direct to my tails. These were inside meters where the consumer unit next to the meter. In my house in Hungary the meter box is outside on the verandah and mounted on the outside wall of the bathroom. I don't know if consumer units can be located in a bathroom but I would rather have it in the living room, above the bathroom door. This would mean the meter tails being at least 5 metres long but the ones at my Croatia house must be at least that long.

wolfi

Yes, electricity is strange in Hungary - our meter and the main fuses are also on the outside of the house. I was shocked when I saw this the first time ...
However the large number of fuses for the individual circuits and the RCD are inside.
Just wish you luck with your installation!

Peter_in_Hungary

It's is quite usual to have the consumer unit in the meter cupboard outside the house fixed to a wall.
As said above the electric companies are trying to drag the electricity supply/household circuits up to date. Consequently if your supply is disconnected (not just suspended) then at reconnection the new standards will apply. This can be expensive with up to date meter boxes, consumer units and wiring to suit, I have never had problems doing my own wiring and getting the certificated sparky to do the final connection ditto central heating work to a gas boiler but of course you have to be competent in what you are doing!

fidobsa

And is this their usual way of getting people to upgrade their wiring, to turn up without warning and cut the wires, leaving the frozen food to rot, tropical fish to die etc? It would not be quite so bad if they did it in summer when the heating was not needed and there were more hours of daylight. Fortunately I can afford to upgrade my electrics but I can imagine some poorer people being without electricity permanently because they can't afford to do it.

wolfi

Imho the suppliers of electricity (and gas and water ...) have too much experience with people who just don't pay, so there's a kind of automatic procedure:

You get some angry letters and then after some time: click ...

That "friend" of mine whose electricity was cut got his neighbour to supply him via a very long extension cord - but he was told that was illegal, they'd cut his supply too if he continued that unsafe practice ...
And I heard that another family (with small children) now got a meter that switches on for x KWHs - after some amount is paid in to their account.
The funniest thing happened last year:
Some gypsies across the street somehow got hold of a lot of Xmas lights which they had switched on all December, really crazy.
And suddenly around a week before Xmas the lights stopped, the house became completely dark ...

Peter_in_Hungary

From your original post where you say that you have not been in Hungary much lately I suspect that you have missed the warning bills, the final demand and the registered letter that advises you to go to the office and pay within xxx or the supply will be cut off. If you do not collect a registered letter it will be returned to the sender and the elec. co. will assume that either you have left the premiss or don't want to accept the letter either way they will start the procedure to cut the supply off. As said above there are enough problems with people not wanting to pay the utilities bill that the utility companies take a hard line attitude with non-payment. (In flats where it is not possible to cut off an individual flat they attach the debt to the flat which increases monthly until the flat is sold or becomes so large that the flat is repossessed)

For the future - when you get this problem solved - you can mange your account and pay on line or you can have an annual or quarterly account to avoid the problems of being away a lot.

fidobsa

I don't think I was cut off for not paying bills and I would have thought the debt would need to be more than 9000 ft for them to take such action anyway. I should hopefully find out more on Wednesday as I'm going back to the EON office with someone to interpret.

duztee

While you are at EON fid, I would also advise setting up an annual account.

I pay fixed quarterly amounts by direct debit with the balance plus or minus adjusted on the November reading.

You can arrange similar accounts for all your services which will allow you to leave the house for long periods without future problems, hopefully.

wolfi

Why don't you do "direct debit"?
Of course then you'd need a certain amount of money on your current account, but with the low interest rates that isn't a great loss.
Though shit will always happen - last month I met a couple at the bank who had problems:
there was no money on their HUF account - somehow it had all been transferred to their Hungarian € account ...
I don't know whose fault that had been, theirs or the bank's.

almafak

I have an annual electricity account for the zártkert, payable in November. They would not do this for the main house account which works out around 100,000 forints a year.