Power lines and electrical infrastructure. A North Hatley homeowner says delays in connecting her newly built home to the grid kept her from moving in until February 2024. Photo by Troopper84/Pexels.
Dear Editor,
I read your story this morning concerning Kris Smith’s situation with Hydro and having his new home hooked up.
I wanted to reach out as we had a similar experience with our new build.
My name is Meagan Mckinven and we built our new home at 170 rue Jones in North Hatley in 2023/2024. The construction began in May/June of 2023 with a temporary power supply to the property for construction reasons. It was during this time that Hydro was aware of the new build, given the temporary hookup. The house was built during the summer and early fall of 2023 and we were not able to move into our home until February 2024 due to a delay in power hookup. We had small space heaters heating the house so the pipes, in a new build, would not freeze.
When we spoke to Hydro in September of 2023 concerning when Hydro would permanently hook up our home, they explained that it could be a 6-12 month wait.
The reason for reaching out is not to have you advocate for our situation, as it has been resolved and we have been living in our lovely new home for 2 years, but I thought our story may show that there are issues in the area with power to new builds and Hydro. I realize that there may be a variety of factors at play, from municipal politics to timelines and Hydro power capabilities, but when homes are being built within a 4-6 month window and Hydro delays are from 6-12 months, this impacts many factors. In a sense, the approval to build a new home, when a plan is submitted to the municipality, should not be approved unless power can be guaranteed in a similar window as the build.
As Kris is an old friend from elementary school, I was made aware of his family’s situation last week and communicated with him concerning our similar experience.
At least for the Smith family it is summer, but our issue occurred during early winter, where we were running space heaters in a new build, which had me worrying that our new home had more chance of catching fire before getting power.
I hope my story helps you examine this issue further, as this is clearly not an isolated situation.
Thank you for listening and I appreciate all your work in keeping our community in the know.
Respectfully,
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