Mains gas supply mysteriously disconnected

aodh_rua

I'm trying to get to the bottom of a little mystery at home.

Between leaving for work around 7:30am and getting home at 7pm yesterday, someone switched off, disconnected and blanked off the mains gas pipe at my meter.

I arrived home to find no supply to my appliances. I rang Bord Gais and they sent a fitter out who reconnected everything. From chatting to him, he felt that it had been done professionally and that it was probably a mistake by Bord Gais mixing me up with another customer.

I rang Bord Gais this morning, and they couldn't explain what happened. According to their system, there were no staff working in Kildare Town yesterday and certainly none working on my house. They said that sometimes kids turn off the valves at source, but they hadn't come across someone going to the trouble of disconnecting the supply.

They recommended reporting it to the guards, which I did this morning.

I'm at a complete loss as to what happened. I imagine work at the meter is done by Bord Gais or their agents, so the fact that there is no record on their end makes the whole thing very mysterious.

Has anyone ever come across something like this before?

Cuddlesworth

Where was that bloke in 1944.

Outkast_IRE

thats odd if it was someone robbing it (for whatever reason) why would they go to the trouble of blanking it properly afterwards , first time i heard of this one !!

Micky Dolenz

Do you owe any service person money?

items

A fitter made a mistake and disconnected supply @ wrong address. The fitter who reconnected supply is right in what he says "professional" job.

Kids do turn off exposed valves they happen to find while mucking about, I doubt your valve was exposed, I doubt kids are going to go to trouble disconnecting a supply and capping it off, where is the fun in that?

If you have some kind of problem with a service person or owing on some bill etc again I cant see disconnecting and capping off a supply as a form of protest happening.

Bord Gas say nobody was on their system working in Kildare town, It doesn't matter what their system tells them if a fitter happened to mistake an address so that excuse is not working from my take on the story.

Hopefully you'll have nothing to worry about, simple mistake, the Garda might not follow it up at all, even if they do I'd say an investigation might just lead back to Bord Gas.

Most Gas fitters responsible for meter reading / maintenance live and work in same area, you could do your own investigation by calling up some of the agency's in your area that work with Bord Gas, ask about who was out working for Bord Gas during time you had meter disconnected, but some how ask the question without letting them know you happened to be disconnected at same time.

Micky Dolenz

maybe, but I get the impression the meter wasn't removed but disconnected.

BG lads more then often throw a lock on the meter and don't disconnect as it takes considerably longer.

items

True, all depends on type of meter, some of the older ones don't have provisions for valve locking, the only way to close supply is to disconnect and cap.

All in all, something like the above happening is slim, has to be a genuine reason for it.

Micky Dolenz

The more I think about it, the more I don't belive it was a BG person. they would have tagged the meter with a warning notice of some type.

It could very well have been a private RGI with a wrong address.

items

I had the meter tag in mind, its pretty much standard but their is cases when as you mention private type RGI with Bord Gas meter contracts take up some of the works, those guys are less kitted out and do works a bit different than direct Bord Gas meter engineers.

I was working on a apartment job when a private RGI meter man arrived to disconnect gas supplies serving a few apartments, all he did was disconnect and cap of pipe work, these were new meters with provisions for valve locks he probably had no locks at time, nor tags as a tags was never left. Meters were suppled by a high pressure manifold so meter set up a bit different than single household, but still same as above.

My feeling goes on a mistake by Bord Gas but cant be 100% sure, hopefuly person finds out what happened.

aodh_rua

Thanks for the feedback guys.

I don't have any issues\outstanding debts with anyone, so I don't think that's the cause.

The most obvious reason for what happened is mistaken identity. I would have expected that any work at the mains\meter would be undertaken by BG or an agent on their behalf, rather than a fitter out doing a job directly for the owner of the property. That is what suprised me about BG Networks, as they had no jobs anywhere in the town (getting an address wrong is one thing, getting the wrong town seems unlikely).

I didn't see any lock on the meter when the fitter came out to reconnect me. He just said it had been blanked.