Cavity wall pumping hit power supply and say they are not liable for repair cost.

garfie1d

Hi, My parents were having their cavity walls pumped on Wednesday and the workmen carrying this out hit a power cable and just left the house with no electricity or water.

Upon returning home and realising this my folks contacted them and long story short they said they will pay half (€170 each) for the repair.

My question is are they are liable for the full cost of the repair? and surly they Must have equipment to check for cables?

thanks in advance for any advice.


They are a "registered installer of Bonded Bead with the National Standards Authority of Ireland"

Cuddlesworth

garfie1d wrote: »

Hi, My parents were having their cavity walls pumped on Wednesday and the workmen carrying this out hit a power cable and just left the house with no electricity or water.

Upon returning home and realising this my folks contacted them and long story short they said they will pay half (€170 each) for the repair.

My question is are they are liable for the full cost of the repair? and surly they Must have equipment to check for cables?

thanks in advance for any advice.


They are a "registered installer of Bonded Bead with the National Standards Authority of Ireland"

I did this before(took out half a esate in Tallaght) and yes they are 100% responsible. A decent wire tester picks up a mains cables straight away.

No Pants

garfie1d wrote: »

they said they will pay half (€170 each) for the repair.

Did they offer any explanation as to why they thought they were only 50% liable?

Ray Palmer

Completely liable. Was working before they arrived not working afterwards. Simple cause and effect.

Curious what exactly they did to knock this out. They could have killed somebody.

garfie1d

No Pants wrote: »

Did they offer any explanation as to why they thought they were only 50% liable?

They said you should not have them in cable in the cavity and no equipment can pick it up and someone could of been killed.

I have also just found out he said to my Mum "are you accusing me" were she replied "no I'm telling you, you did it" which he replied "if your accusing I'll come around to see you on Monday" so he pretty much threaten her.

Cuddlesworth

Ray Palmer wrote: »

Completely liable. Was working before they arrived not working afterwards. Simple cause and effect.

Curious what exactly they did to knock this out. They could have killed somebody.

Would be drilling the wall to inject the material. Rule no1 is check the point your drilling for pipes wires, since Gas and Electric Mains can run through the middle of outside walls.

Cuddlesworth

garfie1d wrote: »

They said you should not have them in cable in the cavity and no equipment can pick it up and someone could of been killed.

I have also just found out he said to my Mum "are you accusing me" were she replied "no I'm telling you, you did it" which he replied "if your accusing I'll come around to see you on Monday" so he pretty much threaten her.

Let me guess, he insisted on payment up front as well?

Ray Palmer

garfie1d wrote: »

They said you should not have them in cable in the cavity and no equipment can pick it up and someone could of been killed.

I have also just found out he said to my Mum "are you accusing me" were she replied "no I'm telling you, you did it" which he replied "if your accusing I'll come around to see you on Monday" so he pretty much threaten her.

In fairness your grammar there doesn't really make much sense so I am not sure who said what to who.

There is a potential problem here with the beads and any electric wires. The insulation on the wires can react to the insulation beads and melt if under pressure.

I am not an expert on this but I am pretty sure that running cables within a cavity is pretty standard in houses built in the 70s and 80s.

Are you saying while pumping the cavity they but the mains power in the walls under so much pressure it disconnected or snapped?

Might be worth checking on the electrical forum. My understanding beaded insulation is not meant to be massively powerful when pumping.

tonic wine

Ray Palmer wrote: »

In fairness your grammar there doesn't really make much sense so I am not sure who said what to who.

There is a potential problem here with the beads and any electric wires. The insulation on the wires can react to the insulation beads and melt if under pressure.

I am not an expert on this but I am pretty sure that running cables within a cavity is pretty standard in houses built in the 70s and 80s.

Are you saying while pumping the cavity they but the mains power in the walls under so much pressure it disconnected or snapped?

Might be worth checking on the electrical forum. My understanding beaded insulation is not meant to be massively powerful when pumping.

Its standard practise to run the cable from your fuseboard to the metre cabinet trough the cavity, but it should be in qualpex/plastic conduit. Maybe they drilled through this. A continuity test will tell this.

You should be able to tell if the cable has plastic qualpex around it where it enters the meter cabinet, insulation will react with the mains cable otherwise.

miss no stars

Here's an idea,

you don't knock out all the power without doing something dangerous. Like in seriousness, how can you possibly knock out the power without anything dangerous going on? I can't think of anything.


Get on the phone to them, ask if they've already lodged an IR3 with the HSA because you don't want to double up on paperwork if they've already done it.

http://www.hsa.ie/eng/Publications_and_Forms/Forms/IR3_form_may09.pdf


They aren't going to want the HSA breathing down their neck. Fix the damage or the form gets submitted.

MicktheMan

garfie1d wrote: »

and surly they Must have equipment to check for cables?

thanks in advance for any advice.


They are a "registered installer of Bonded Bead with the National Standards Authority of Ireland"

OP, the following is lifted from a nsai certified cwi product and I believe this is stated in all cwi certs:
A complete survey report (including a borescope survey) is prepared before installation and held at the Approved Installer's offices. Particular problems are specifically identified and any reasons for rejection of the work are noted.
It would be interesting to ask for a copy of the survey that should have been carried out;)

garfie1d

Ray Palmer wrote: »

In fairness your grammar there doesn't really make much sense so I am not sure who said what to who.

There is a potential problem here with the beads and any electric wires. The insulation on the wires can react to the insulation beads and melt if under pressure.

I am not an expert on this but I am pretty sure that running cables within a cavity is pretty standard in houses built in the 70s and 80s.

Are you saying while pumping the cavity they but the mains power in the walls under so much pressure it disconnected or snapped?

Might be worth checking on the electrical forum. My understanding beaded insulation is not meant to be massively powerful when pumping.

Apologies for my delayed response (I was at work and went home to a screaming baby....good times), your also getting this third hand and my grammar was definitely not helping. I called my dad to get more details on what happened, so I'll start again.

My folks had the company come around and got a quote of which they agreed on (I'm unsure if they did a borescope survey), the company said they cannot give them a date when work will commence and there is no need for them to be present as they don't need access to inside the house in order to complete the work.

When my folks came home on Wednesday the whole job had been done and no one was there, they quickly realised they had knocked the power out so contacted the company by phone to inform them they have left the place without electricity and water. The employee was aggressive and placing blame on my parents stating the cable should not have been their and someone could of gone out on a stretcher. In the end the company sent an electrician out and said they will spilt the cost (€170 each).
The electrician came out and did a temporary fix to get the power back on for that night (no water tho) and then came back the next day with parts to complete it.

It turns out the cable is not even in the cavity wall, its on the outer wall under plaster.
Is this the norm? (It's a bungalow built in 2004/2005 and brought by my folks in 2006)

Is this just a case of simple cause and effect due to not checking the point they were drilling for pipes and wires as Cuddlesworth & Ray Palmer mentioned?

Thanks to miss no stars & MicktheMan that could be very useful

L1011

If its outside the wall the company is even more at fault for ensuring nothing was in the way of their drilling, they can't blame it being "in the cavity" for a ten quid cable detector not finding it let alone the proper gear they should have.

More importantly though - why does a ten year old building not have cavity insulation in the first place?

miss no stars

OP the company are 100% in the wrong and 100% taking the piss and they know it. They obviously never bothered checking anything, just started drilling. Their fault, they pay.

I'd be inclined to tell them they've til the end of the week to cough up for the repairs to be done by an electrician and plumber of your parents' choosing. If they don't pay for it (and they can't insist on using one of their people - just think about how wrong that could go) then you're reporting the incident to the HSA and you'll see them in court.

garfie1d

Thanks to you all for your advice on this matter, It's greatly appreciated and sure we can sort this out.

MYOB wrote: »

More importantly though - why does a ten year old building not have cavity insulation in the first place?

Unfortunately my folks wouldn't be that financially comfortable to of had it done previously and I would even of had to pick up the bill for the repair.

Thanks again

L1011

garfie1d wrote: »

Unfortunately my folks wouldn't be that financially comfortable to of had it done previously and I would even of had to pick up the bill for the repair.

What I meant is that its new enough that the builders should have done it day 1. I believe its been required since the 1997 building regulations.

seaniefr

garfie1d wrote: »

Thanks to you all for your advice on this matter, It's greatly appreciated and sure we can sort this out.



Unfortunately my folks wouldn't be that financially comfortable to of had it done previously and I would even of had to pick up the bill for the repair.

Thanks again

Did this happen close to the esb meter cabinet?

Cuddlesworth

garfie1d wrote: »

My folks had the company come around and got a quote of which they agreed on (I'm unsure if they did a borescope survey), the company said they cannot give them a date when work will commence and there is no need for them to be present as they don't need access to inside the house in order to complete the work.

You do not do any work on a house without the owner being explicitly aware. They don't have to be there, they just have to know your there.

In all honesty, their process sounds like they don't want anybody there checking on their work.

garfie1d wrote: »

When my folks came home on Wednesday the whole job had been done and no one was there, they quickly realised they had knocked the power out so contacted the company by phone to inform them they have left the place without electricity and water. The employee was aggressive and placing blame on my parents stating the cable should not have been their and someone could of gone out on a stretcher. In the end the company sent an electrician out and said they will spilt the cost (€170 each).
The electrician came out and did a temporary fix to get the power back on for that night (no water tho) and then came back the next day with parts to complete it.

Nobody but ESB is allowed touch mains cables from the meter and beyond. Your parents now have a illegal patch job done on their house. Keeping in mind as I said above, I did this myself. ESB sent out 1 crew to detect the fault, then another to fix it.

There is also not a chance in hell that the person who hit the mains was not aware of it immediately. He would have blown the fuse on his drill and tripped the transformer, not to mention the sparks and bang.

garfie1d wrote: »

It turns out the cable is not even in the cavity wall, its on the outer wall under plaster.
Is this the norm? (It's a bungalow built in 2004/2005 and brought by my folks in 2006)

Doesn't really matter. Mains power tends to be in places that ESB can easily access and is something your are always aware of drilling a wall. A decent cable/pipe tester can detect both at about 2 meters.

garfie1d wrote: »

Is this just a case of simple cause and effect due to not checking the point they were drilling for pipes and wires as Cuddlesworth & Ray Palmer mentioned?

Yes.

garfie1d

MYOB wrote: »

What I meant is that its new enough that the builders should have done it day 1. I believe its been required since the 1997 building regulations.

So all this headache is over something that should of already been done! Great

garfie1d

seaniefr wrote: »

Did this happen close to the esb meter cabinet?

I'll find this out tomorrow

garfie1d

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

Nobody but ESB is allowed touch mains cables from the meter and beyond. Your parents now have a illegal patch job done on their house. Keeping in mind as I said above, I did this myself. ESB sent out 1 crew to detect the fault, then another to fix it.

There is also not a chance in hell that the person who hit the mains was not aware of it immediately. He would have blown the fuse on his drill and tripped the transformer, not to mention the sparks

So now we should contact the ESB for them to assess the situation?

seaniefr

garfie1d wrote: »

So now we should contact the ESB for them to assess the situation?

you need to ascertain if possible the area they were drilling through
i.e. was it around the ESB meter cabinet and if so was it
a) below the cabinet (ESB pipe enters from bottom)
or
b) at or around the top of the cabinet (consumer power supply)
also, posting this in the electrical forum would give you some good feedback and if you could post a pic of where the drilling took place and also the meter cabinet then all the better.
You should be asking the Electrician for his credentials (member of RECI or the ECSSA) as i think your parents are owed some paperwork from that kind of a repair which is not considered minor if it's where i think it may be.

Report these guys to whatever organisation they claim to be a member of and the cops if possible,
that conduct towards your parents is nothing short of disgraceful, not to mention illegal (threatening phone call) and completely unprofessional.
I would doubt very much that they drilled through the ESB side as the electrician would not have been able to restore power without someone on the ESB side to replace fuse/meter seals etc. but you never know! Do you know if they finished off the insulation job?

ted1

Contact the nsai and ask for there opinion on there certified installer and also on what responsibilty they take.

garfie1d

Thanks for your time on this, I'll try and sort these tomorrow.