What does power look like in a bad week?
Every building has electricity on the day you visit. The question is what happens when it goes.
Nobody asks about electricity while viewing a flat, because the lights are on during the viewing. Then the first long outage arrives, usually in summer, usually mid-afternoon, and you learn the thing that should have been on the listing: it is not whether the power cuts, it is what the building does about it.
The range is wide. Some buildings have full backup and you barely notice an outage. Some run the lifts and one light per flat. In some, "backup" means a single bulb in the stairwell, and in an independent house it usually means whatever inverter you buy yourself. If you work from home, this is not a detail. It is the difference between a flat and an office.
Three questions before you sign
- What exactly does the backup cover: the whole flat, a few points, or just the lift and the common lights?
- How is it billed? Generator units cost several times the BESCOM rate, and in some buildings that is the real surprise in the maintenance bill.
- Ask a resident what the worst week of last summer looked like. A resident, not the association office.
The feed asks every area the same thing: what does power look like in a bad week? If you have lived through one where you are, say so. It is exactly the kind of fact that never makes it to a listing and always makes it to a regret.