Frost Metalworking & Machinery left without electricity for over 24 hours

Frost Metalworking & Machinery, a company which specialises in high quality tools and equipment for the Automotive Restorer, based on Crawford Street, Rochdale was left without power for over 24 hours after issues emerged with their electricity meter.

The company electricity meter began smouldering at around 5.00pm on Monday 12 May. This resulted in an engineer from the electricity board shutting off the electricity.

Scottish Power then told the company that it could be as late as 9.00pm on Tuesday 13 May before the issue was resolved.

Mrs Woods, from Frost, said: “It is absolutely ridiculous. We had to send everyone home on Tuesday. How are we supposed to operate a business without any electricity?”

It is understood that the issue blew out the server that Frost uses for its online side of the business as well as leaving the company without phone or computer access.

“It was crazy. We had to run a cable across the car park and send everyone home,” added Mrs Woods.

The electricity meter was finally replaced at 8.00pm on Tuesday 13 May.

“It is outrageous. This should have been sorted out a lot sooner. When the engineer from Scottish Power came he said to us that he could have easily come at 6.00am because he had no other jobs that day,” added Mrs Woods.

A spokesperson for Scottish Power said: “The customer contacted Electricity North West to report the incident. An engineer attended and isolated supplies and made the issue safe at 18.50pm that evening (12/02/14) – this call was treated as an emergency.

“The customer then contacted Scottish Power customer service and this was logged at 18.58. He allowed the engineer to speak with us who made us aware that a new meter was required for the premises.

“The new meter was programmed to be fitted the following day. We made the customer aware that the job would be completed at around 8pm that evening as other jobs were already programmed in for that day.

"We are sorry for the inconvenience this matter caused.”

Due to the issue, Frost has been unable to process orders placed this week and were unable to receive phone calls on Tuesday. The company have also lost their record of orders taken by phone from mid day on Friday 9 May and all day Monday 12 May.

Anyone who ordered via phone during the time mentioned or anyone who has an order pending should contact Frost so they can check and re-process orders where necessary.