Thanks - all prep work done.
Has anyone more current 
experience ?
NIE and all the UK utilities get paid via a number of avenues for by the no doubt extortionate price they are hitting you with. For every complaint that they get logged against them it can cost them up to £10k from the regulator. The GB and NI energy market has 1 big pot to pay all the utilities throughout and the market from. They work out who get what via customer minutes lost, customer minutes interrupted, lost time injuries etc etc. UKPN and Western Power are the two best Utillitues according to these so get paid the most. UKPN have spent a fortune on automation (smart grids that switch around the faults), interconnections and most importantly their call Centre and dispatch staff. If you make a complaint they will go way beyond expectations to get you to rescind said complaint. This I have seen to involve paying for family meals or cinema tickets for children, vouchers etc. they do this because it is much cheaper to pay for small stuff that people are amazed at the gesture than it is to take the hit on the complaint. Western Power immediately dispatch generators to faults before sending engineers to carry out repairs because they lose more money fault finding rather than just getting supply restored. Once supply is restored they get as long as the want (normal time no overtime) to carry out repairs. So simple answer is formally complain, to NIE, then the regulator. Don’t be fobbed off by them.
Alternatively the market is being opened up to contractors who you can hire direct to do the work. Would work out much cheaper and you would likely get a better job done if you have any notion of what you want them to do
Good luck
