County Durham residents hit by energy loss double whammy

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<div class="rxbodyfield" xmlns:o="urn:www.microsoft.com/office" xmlns:st1="urn:www.microsoft.com/smarttags" xmlns:st2="urn:www.microsoft.com/smarttags2" xmlns:w="urn:www.microsoft.com/word" xmlns:x="urn:www.microsoft.com/excel"><p>Following days of having to live without a gas supply, residents in the Crook area of County Durham are now also facing life without electricity.</p><p>A fractured gas pipe started the problems at the weekend after a digger hit one of the main supply lines for the region. </p><p>The 5,000 homes affected by the leak were provided with electric hotplates and heaters by the energy supplier CE Electric, but its thought that the huge electricity demand partly caused by the items may have led to the fuses blowing at nearby electricity substations, causing 300 homes to be without any energy supply at all.</p><p>Though the main has now been repaired, homeowners face a long wait while engineers perform safety checks to make sure that the homes are habitable again. </p><p>A spokesman for CE Electric said that consumers could help themselves by staggering their electricity use which would help to prevent a further blackout.</p><p>&quot;We are also working with Northern Gas Networks to coordinate our efforts to restore both gas and electricity to all customers. We ask our customers who are affected by electricity interruptions to be patient as we work to restore their power,&quot; he added.</p><p>Is your energy supplier giving you the best price and service? uSwitch.com not only compares the cost of energy plans but also gives you the supplier&#39;s customer satisfaction score. See how well your gas &amp; electricity suppliers perform, with the <a href="http://www.uswitch.com/Energy/Index.aspx?">uSwitch.com energy calculator - you may be surprised at the results!</p><p><a href="http://www.adfero.co.uk" target="_blank"><img alt="track" src="http://feeds.directnews.co.uk/feedtrack/dn.gif?feedid=362&amp;itemid=18063369" style="border:0 0 0" />&#169; Adfero Ltd</a></a></p></div>