Gas leak caused by Comet

luckygirl20

Just before Christmas our oven had an electrical fire and was subsequently condemned by our insurer.
The inspection was carried out by Ival; who use Comet engineers.
The comet engineer isolated the gas and electric on the oven and left.
It took 3 months for us to get the replacement oven fitted despite making clear from day 1 that we had two pensioners and two diabectics in the house so the oven was critical.
For a two month period we had an internal gas leak from the point which was isolated despite two visits from Comet engineers to solve the issue. It wasn't until after the second engineers visit that Transco were called; and they finally sorted the problem.
Needless to say I wasn't happy, and have chased the insurer and transco for some form of compensation to try and make up for all the stress and hassle caused by themselves.
The sum they have quoted was finally sent to me yesterday and felt like a total insult. It doesn't even cover the gas price due to the leak !
Can anyone suggest further lines I could take this down?

System

If you have any complaint it is to IVAL and not Comet. The Comet engineers were working on behalf of IVAL.

If you had a gas leak why didn't you call the emergency gas number in the first place? That is what it is there for.

instead of the leak carrying on for those extra days while one Comet engineer fails to fix it, arranging for a second and then getting Transco out, you would have had the leak isolated the same day as reporting it.

ShaneUK

A few questions....

1) How severe was the gas leak - by the sounds of it, you were still in the house so therefore, it can not have been that severe otherwise (surely) there would have been an explosion during the gas leak.

2) How much have they offered

3) How much do you think you are out of pocket due to this "experience" (and breakdown of how you roughly come to that figure.

maninthestreet

Why should Transco pay you any compensation??

luckygirl20

Thanks for all the replies; the leak was enough that we'd smell it every so often; and whenever you came home; but we put this down to residual gas from the isolation.
Comets second engineer "detected" the leak; classed as major in his report and conducted another isolation.
Three weeks later they sent out a third engineer as apparently the second wasn't qualified to do an isolation. When testing he found a 12 millibar drop over two minutes. He conducted an isolation and left.
Three days later we get a call from Comet "can we send out transco just to make sure?". They came out found an 18 milli bar leak and went mental.
As mentioned we didn't think it was that bad - we were having building work done so there was excellent ventilation through the house; the transco chap said this was the only reason we didn't blow up.
According to the gas company the leak equates to about £340 of gas; theres about £150 of calls made to all these companies; and the sheer stress of it ! 3 months with no cooking facilities in the house and no one seems to give a damn !
I wasn't concerned about compensation at first but it seems its the only thing these people will understand. They offered £200

vax2002

What losses can you prove, bills, accounts, ect, not what do you estimate it cost.
Get your paper work together, do the sums and come back

ShaneUK

So actual financial loss is £490. Can you get proof that the extra gas equates to that much, and copies of phone bills etc to proof that you have spent that much on the phone - it does sound like an awful lot to be honest (I am not disagreeing with this amount, but you can bet your bottom dollar that Ival/Comet will argue.

Any other financial losses (don't know what you could claim for, but what about having to spend more on meals as you have no use of an oven, or having more meals out/takeaways etc etc). Everything is worth a try.

At the end of the day - and this and everything above - is my opinion, it may not be correct (as always on forums!!) I don't think you should be out of pocket in any way at all.

Good luck!

Flyboy152

ShaneUK wrote: »

So actual financial loss is £490. Can you get proof that the extra gas equates to that much, and copies of phone bills etc to proof that you have spent that much on the phone - it does sound like an awful lot to be honest (I am not disagreeing with this amount, but you can bet your bottom dollar that Ival/Comet will argue.

Any other financial losses (don't know what you could claim for, but what about having to spend more on meals as you have no use of an oven, or having more meals out/takeaways etc etc). Everything is worth a try.

At the end of the day - and this and everything above - is my opinion, it may not be correct (as always on forums!!) I don't think you should be out of pocket in any way at all.

Good luck!

I am not sure that IVAL or Comet can be responsible for the claimant not having an oven, unless the work they carried out prevented an oven from being fitted.

luckygirl20

They eventually paid out just under £3000.00 - thanks for all your help people

somethingcorporate

luckygirl20 wrote: »

They eventually paid out just under £3000.00 - thanks for all your help people

hmmmm.........

CoolHotCold

Would Comet be the people who paid this out? Or the Insurer (which I hope that total is for everything (new cooker/wasted gas/inconvenience etc))