Breach of Contract - 4 months on

Big words and even bigger meaning behind them. It is a topic I was hoping not to have to write, but guess what? I am sick of incompetent people making mistakes on my time and on my dime. Every day this Breach is not fixed, it is costing me actual money - out of my own pocket.

Let me explain.

As part of our signed Building Contract, there was a provision for the installation of Tariff 33 to our hot water system. What is Tariff 33? It is:

Tariff 33 is known as the Economy Plan and is ideal for medium sized electric storage water heaters, solar-electric water heaters and heat pump water heaters. This tariff is also appropriate for other domestic loads such as swimming pool filters, water bed heaters and some freezers, provided they are permanently connected.

This tariff is up to 40% cheaper than your normal domestic tariff. Electricity supply is available for at least 18 hours per day and is switched via load control equipment supplied and maintained by the network provider. The times of supply are completely up to the network provider but are generally outside of the hours of 5-9 pm.

Directly quoted from http://www.tariff33.com/electricity-tariffs-explained/

So this Tariff 33 should have been installed in our house before house handover and we moved in. Obviously, this didn't happen and we didn't know because it is not a physical fixture to the house you'd normally check, like scratched kitchen splashback or chipped tiles. No, we first noticed that this didn't happen when we got our first electricity bill a month in (early July 2016), where Tariff 33 was not listed on our bill.

Perplexed, we called our energy provider and was informed that it wasn't installed on the property and therefore, not metered. We immediately called Plantation Homes where, upon checking their copy of our signed contract, offered to get their Electrician Contractor to come out and get the "hardware" ready for Energex to connect Tariff 33.

Easy and makes sense right?

That was more than 3 months ago. The same Electrician Contractor has visited the house at least twice (each time claiming that he has done what is required so Energex can make the connection). My husband took the day off work yesterday to wait for the Energex guy to come out and connect the damn thing, only to be told that the hardware (I am guessing that means wires from point A to point B) is in fact not in place.

So...still no Tariff 33.

It is still costing us more. Every. Single. Day...to run electricity to our hot water system, amongst other things.

My husband, still believing the system of letting Plantation Homes know works - is going to call them this morning - frustrated as all get out. Me? I am venting here, and letting anyone who is reading how terrible Plantation Homes and their contractors are botching a very simple job.

On a more serious note too - this is an actual Breach of Contract, which I have been holding off going to the QBCC in the hope that they will fix this issue. However, I am running out of patience. Every day they aren't fixing the issue, we are charged more for electricity. Every dollar and cent counts in our household. Even if Energex was able to fix the issue yesterday, they were only going to pay the $500 connection fee - and not any additional electricity we had to pay as a result of their mistake.

So, their incompetence is actually costing me money. If you decide to build a house with them, this may happen to you too.