Devon E.ON customers launch one star review campaign after heating outages

While customers say they have faced frequent outages and difficulties with customer services, the energy provider says it operates efficiently and effectively for the overwhelming majority

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Two Devon communities have launched a campaign of Trustpilot reviews to put pressure on their heating provider E.ON as they say the service "just isn't good enough". A mounting sense of frustration among residents has come to a head after a number of hot water outages over the last six months.

E.ON says its district heating systems in Cranbrook, East Devon and the Tithebarn estate in Monkerton, Exeter "operate efficiently and effectively for the overwhelming majority of the time they are needed."

They add that there has only been one incident of "extended loss of service" in Cranbrook in December, during which some customers told DevonLive they were without hot water for almost a week in sub zero temperatures. This is understood to have been a problem with valves in the heat interface units in some homes which E.ON says it will be replacing.

"What if a plane goes in the side of the energy centre? You say it's not likely but it is literally next to an airport. It's like in December when the alarms went off. We know what happens, Cranbrook loses hot water," says Vincent Wilton, a resident and local campaigner in Cranbrook, referring to an incident in January when homes were without hot water and heating for several hours after a fire alarm cut off the town's energy centre.

He continued: "It all boils down to this system has never been done at this scale before so a lot of these problems stem from it being all new to them."

Vincent has been tracking the problems that residents have been facing in the ever-growing town. Having done a survey of the community recently while campaigning to become an East Devon District Councillor, he says almost 30 per cent of people he asked highlighted difficulties with E.ON as their top issue.

Homes in Cranbrook are signed up to E.ON's district heating agreement until 2090. They are supplied by an energy centre rather than a boiler and the systems within their homes can only be serviced by an E.ON engineer, which Vincent explains poses its own problems for residents.

He said: "If you're vulnerable, they're supposed to provide 24/7 care. If you lose your heating in the middle of winter and you've got a young family or you're disabled or you're particularly vulnerable to the cold, they're supposed to look after you. Despite this, I've got countless residents who don't get that service. You have to call their call centre and their call centre is only open 9am til 5pm with the ‘emergency’ service leaving a lot to be desired . People are angry because they’re essentially dependent on when Eon decide they’ll help when they've got a fault.

"One guy said at a meeting with E.ON said 'if I had a gas boiler, I could call any plumber, even if I had to pay for it and I could get some bloke to come out at any time on any day of the year.' It should be my own choice as a customer. They've got a monopoly on service and you can't leave.

"The service they offer just isn't good enough in any respect."

In Tithebarn, a development in Exeter also served by an E.ON district heating scheme, locals say they have faced frequent periods of service interruption. Ben Cruickshank who lives on the Minerva site says that his family went without hot water for almost a week earlier this month.

Ben said: "Recently we went a week without hot water so we noticed issues Sunday night (April 30), woke up Monday (May 1) to no hot water. We didn't get hot water until 4 or 5pm on Friday afternoon (May 5).

"The first hurdle was we had to do a diagnosis ourselves and I sat on hold for 45 or 50 minutes to try and get hold of E.ON. The engineer that came out was very nice, I've got no problems with the E.ON staff that I've spoken to on the phone, they don't create the issue. I couldn't do [the diagnosis] because I was at work and needed to be at the machine in our house so by the time I came home in the evening, it was too late for anybody there to deal with the issue.

"I filed a complaint and mentioned compensation and I think I got about £9.70 for five days of no hot water and £5 of that was apparently a sorry. I think they'd taken it from the time they got the diagnosis to the time the engineer came out."

Ben moved into his house in 2018, wanting to upsize so he could live with his new partner and stepdaughters, as well as looking for something "reliable". At the time he had no concerns about the district heating network but now says he's not sure he would have bought the house if he'd known of the issues he would face.

He explained: "When you sign up, you're a bit naïve I suppose as you kind of expect E.ON to hold up their end of the bargain and it's not being held up.

"If you knew you were going to have this many issues, you'd seriously put a lot of thought into whether you would actually buy that house.

"I'm out in the rain all day cutting grass and you come home and want to have a hot shower. When you know you've got to get into a freezing cold shower, it's not great.

"Everybody is on our Facebook group all the time saying 'oh great no hot water again'. We started a group of going on to Trustpilot and leaving a one star review because none of us are happy with the customer support we get, the fact that we are on hold for 45 minutes every time we ring up."

Jodie Johnston, who has lived in Tithebarn for five years with her partner and two young children, launched the campaign of Trustpilot reviews as she says there is an overwhelming feeling of "frustration" on the estate.

She told DevonLive: "In terms of this intermittent service that people have been reporting, I would say that has been worse over the last 18 months. It's a lot, one of the outages being on the coldest day this year, it was really bad. When the heating kicks back in, you're basically paying to heat your house back to the temperature it was in the first place.

"We had no hot water for about six to seven hours on Sunday (May 7). I think they gave a very basic compensation a while back of around £6 to everyone.

"After the outage on Sunday (May 7) and saw how that impacted people, I thought 'right, what can we do?' I know these Trustpilot scores do worry them. At the moment I think there's 30 to 40 but in the Tithebarn group on Facebook, there's 1,400 members so I feel quite confident that we're going to get that up fairly quickly. We have now linked with Cranbrook as well.

"The general feeling is frustration because it's that unreliability like you get up in the morning, you need a shower before you go to work and there's always that little doubt in the back of your mind. I think the uncertainty stresses people out."

Prior to moving to Tithebarn, Jodie lived in phase one of Cranbrook for three years. She says she doesn't recall issues with E.ON during that time but believes that the increasing size of both neighbourhoods may have impacted service. Part of Cranbrook's local plan aims to expand the population to a town of 20,000 people.

When asked if she had any concerns about the district heating network before moving to Tithebarn, Jodie said: "I didn't because before living here, we'd lived in Cranbrook for three years so I've been on this heating system for nearly eight years in total. When we were in Cranbrook, we lived in phase one and there weren't many houses there then and I don't recall having the experience that we're having now. It's since the area they cover has grown that it's been getting worse and worse."

However, E.ON says that networks have been designed to "include sufficient capacity" for the rapidly growing populations of both areas. The provider adds that the district heating networks do face disruptions but these incidents can be caused by issues "completely outside of our control".

An E.ON spokesperson said: "The Cranbrook and Monkerton networks operate efficiently and effectively for the overwhelming majority of the time they are needed. Any interruption is of course one too many but we have only experienced a single incident which caused an extended loss of service, in Cranbrook during December of last year, and for this we apologised to all affected customers and paid out compensation as per our guaranteed standard of service.

"Since the interruption in December we have carried out a wide-ranging analysis of the issue which found it was related to a specific make and model of heating valve. We are writing to residents to arrange for replacement of the valve.

"Cranbrook and Monkerton are both fast growing developments and our networks and the energy centres on both networks have been designed to include sufficient capacity for this growth, they also include significant levels of resilience. Despite this resilience we do sometimes experience interruptions to supply for a range of reasons, some of them being completely outside of our control, such as local area power cuts, but we always endeavour to communicate with customers quickly and comprehensively.

"If customers are struggling with consistent issues, they should contact us with a phone call/live chat/email."

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Devon E.ON customers launch one star review campaign after heating outages