How Bucharest residents can recover their money for the thermal energy not delivered in January, when thousands of blocks were without heat for whole weeks / Termoenergetica announcement
Cold radiator, Photo: Hotnews
Bucharest residents who in January did not receive heat and hot water according to the parameters of the contract with Termoenergetica can request compensation for the month of February, through the owners' associations, the company's representatives announced.
- The request must be sent by email to Termoenergetica, and a representative of the company will come later to check the meter in the basement of the block.
Since the beginning of January, a breakdown of a CET Sud equipment has affected the supply of heat and hot water for 40% of the blocks in the Capital connected to the centralized system. The situation continued throughout January and even at the beginning of February, during which the affected Bucharest residents, mostly from sectors 2 and 3, had only lukewarm radiators and warm water as from the sun.
People were outraged, and online petitions were circulated proposing that the maintenance bill should no longer be paid, as a sign of protest. A Bucharest resident announced that he sued Termoenergetica.
The heating agent supplier explained that people pay only what the block's meter reads in their maintenance bill, i.e. less than they would have paid if the heating agent was delivered at maximum parameters.
Bucharest residents can benefit from a compensation for the next bill
People can, however, benefit from a compensation with the next month's bill, if it is proven that the temperature of the heating agent was lower than that stipulated in the contract, Diana Nițescu, head of service within Termoenergetica, announced on Thursday at a debate on this topic.
“On request, we give those reductions according to the contract. Requests are made at the association level, from the legal representative of the association, to grant a reduction (in the invoice for the next month – no),” she said.
Nițescu explained that, for example, if a building received hot water at 35 degrees, and the contract stipulated a minimum of 50 degrees, the residents pay for the heating agent at 35 degrees, and the difference up to 50 degrees will turn into a bonus for the next bill.
“The cold water had an average temperature of 5 degrees in January, so from 5 to the delivered temperature a certain amount of energy was consumed, depending on the distance from the CET, we could provide 37 or 40 degrees, so the energy consumed between 5 degrees and the delivered temperature is what the meter recorded,” she added.
According to her, there are already many requests for the month of January from associations in sector 3, but there is no centralized situation for now, as requests are still awaited.
Why compensation is not automatic and a request is required
Asked why the compensation is done only on request, and not automatically, Nițescu specified that the representatives of Termoenergetica must go to the points indicated in the requests to check the indicators in the meter.
“There are 34-36,000 meters, which we have to check physically. The parameters cannot be taken out automatically, you have to go down to the basement to extract the data from the meter, check which parameters were delivered at the level of each hour. Otherwise, you see some average values that have no relevance”, explained the person in charge of Termoenergetica.
The e-mail must be sent by the president of the association to [email protected] and must include the period when hot water and heat were in short supply.
