The situation is difficult to manage. On the one hand, the residents who are cold and who do not accept “a general and arbitrary gas cut”, and on the other, the GRDF specialists who explain that everyone’s safety is at stake. Since 9 December, around thirty apartments in the Montaigne residence, rue de Longwy in Thionville, have been deprived of gas, and therefore also of heating and hot water. Even if the occupants are not all housed in the same boat – some have extra appliances and/or electric stoves – the negative temperatures of the last few days have made them shiver.
Carbon monoxide
On Friday 9 December, maintenance was carried out on the VMC of the building, but then the device failed. The boilers of the apartments are logically in safety and detached. All ? No. One part is not up to standard and causes emanations of carbon monoxide. People are poisoned and treated by firefighters, while GRDF and Engie make the decision to shut off the general gas supply. “Since then there has been almost no news,” says an owner who has lived in the building since 2018, with his wife and two children aged 7 months and 3 years. For GRDF we may not be a priority, but we admit that the delay is still long! An intervention was scheduled for Thursday 15 December, it was finally postponed to 21 December. And no one assures us that the gas will be restored on the 21st. Given how it started, we will spend Christmas in the cold, at home, with about fifteen people. It is currently 15°C in the morning in the living room. Even our cats are cold and come to sleep in our room. Luckily our apartment faces south. With the sun and the bay windows we recover a few degrees. »
Sensitive to this crisis, the trustee of the building has made electric heating devices available…, but who rents! A few days before Christmas, free would have been welcome. As for GRDF, the company deplores the inconvenience and insists on the safety aspect: “The detection of carbon monoxide leads to a procedure which requires the plant to be switched off. It must be repaired before being put back into service. We act as quickly as possible, but there are consistency delays between GRDF and the diagnostic services. And specify that the works were carried out this Thursday and that the return to service will take place on December 19, only if the diagnostician gives the go-ahead.
