big bill for half hour work !

visidigi

to be fair, you in your opening post did admit you 'somehow' hit a cable - really should be using a beeper if possible when drilling into a wall. - especially if you arent familiar with the wiring in the property.

I am a bit confused though how you have managed to drill a mains line and not a ring main conisdering it was within your own walls? was it near the breaker box?

I cant understand how its caused a hole to be dug outside your property?

Also just put something in perspective, while it was only half an hour's work Its worth rementioning the fact they were there within an hour - and the initial work is always the most expensive.

I dont doubt the fee is excessive, considering, but I would expect something like this with call out etc is not going to be under £1k...

Dispute it with UK PN though, there must be some movement in the overall invoice.

Radsteral

in order to touch the cables inside of my house the uk p n, had to do a sort of by pass somewhere before the damaged area thats why thye had to open a hole outside... they said they cant disconect the power as it will shut quite a big chunk of the neighbourhood without notice .

i had an electrican with me .. we could se the cable initially and we were actually digging 15 cm on the right of it..
electrican took his time and revealed till he found the brick...so we could put a wall plug there.
unlucy for me , the hole i drilled there wouldnt suport the brackett...so i drilled only 2 cm below the initial hole....
little did i know that the mains cable had done a 90 degree turn comming towards our hole .

we got the tools but my friend, i have managed to hit a normal socket cable twice while using a 400 pounds bosch indicator !!
normally cables run vertical up or down... some like mine run as they wish, hence my 2200 bill !
i thought the initial work was from uk power networks ..2 guys almost 3 hours.. and 75 pounds materials .. but they only charging 400 quid for it and they have clarified it.
o rurke 2 guys- half hour , no money for materials = 1820.00
i did say i understand there logistics and arrangements involved and not expecting to pay for just opening the hole , but i think o rurke thinks i am the olimpic authority or what, and can pay whatever they want

Radsteral

and couldnt dig inside the house as there was no slack and couldnt dig the size of the hole they needed to put that bypass thing roughly 20 cm deep,and the wall is a single wall=10 cm thick .

i since have sent my 3 month old bosch beeper back to shop and got the money back .

a german fella came in with a new one, same as the one i had and that wasnt beeping where the cable stands now .....maybe because of the covers the cable got or maybe the bosch, as i estimated is uselees 400 quid tool

shaun_from_Africa

in order to touch the cables inside of my house the uk p n, had to do a sort of by pass somewhere before the damaged area thats why thye had to open a hole outside... they said they cant disconect the power as it will shut quite a big chunk of the neighbourhood without notice .

This is the bit I don't understand.
I thought that it was a requirement for all properties to have a provision for the power to be turned off by the householder. This is normally a switch on the main consumer unit or meter assembly.
I've never heard of anyone ever needing to dig a hole simply to cut the supply inside a house.

Even if for some strange reason there wasn't an accessible switch, there must be fuses and an RCD in the circuit which could be tripped. (in fact, these should have operated when the cable was drilled)

visidigi

Radsteral wrote: »

in order to touch the cables inside of my house the uk p n, had to do a sort of by pass somewhere before the damaged area thats why thye had to open a hole outside... they said they cant disconect the power as it will shut quite a big chunk of the neighbourhood without notice .

So for UK PN to fix the problem in your house, they want you to pay for the lack of redundancy in the network they have? Sounds to me like this could happen to an awful lot of people over time resulting in big bills.

For me i would be asking UK PN to look at the amounts again, they really would struggle to justify passing on the cost to the consumer for the lack of redundancy in thier own network (think about it for a second, how would they disconnect a property if they couldn't gain access...they either couldn't or they would do what they have done now but they would foot the bill).

The issue here with LOR is due to the fact they usually invoice the networks and the networks pay the bill due to the fact they save money by not employeeing thier own crew, it seems you might be paying the full wack and then some to LOR here - all due to lack of redundancy in the network - very poor.

Radsteral

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

This is the bit I don't understand.
I thought that it was a requirement for all properties to have a provision for the power to be turned off by the householder. This is normally a switch on the main consumer unit or meter assembly.
I've never heard of anyone ever needing to dig a hole simply to cut the supply inside a house.

Even if for some strange reason there wasn't an accessible switch, there must be fuses and an RCD in the circuit which could be tripped. (in fact, these should have operated when the cable was drilled)

as it stands in all the houses i have seen- same as mine ....you get the main switch board, where most of socket and switch cables start from... then below that you got a red and a black cable that come from a big switch.. then you get the main cable .... i did cut below the main switch
if it was after the main switch, you just remove the switch and its fine to work around it .
its one these things that can cost lifes!
i got my life back but since then, no tv to buy, no holiday and no plans till this one is sorted
cant blame uk power networks for the way the things are set on the uk regarding electricity cables....as much as i know they took over another company few years ago --so inherited the network

shaun_from_Africa

Now it all makes sense.
I assumed that as you were working in the Kitchen then the cable that was damaged was one that came from the consumer unit and not the main feed going to it.

visidigi

indeed, now my replies don't make any sense either - if you had said 'I drilled through the cable coming into the house before it gets to the house fusebox' then that would have avoided the confusion - in that case then I am afraid its a case of bargaining on the price now - if at all possible.

also just a note, inherited network or not, they're still responsible

maninthestreet

So how big was this hole, and was a mechanical digger required to dig it?

Equaliser123

Strongly advise against not paying it. You WILL lose at Court.

Far better to offer what you, sensibly, think is reasonable. Do this in writing and mark it without prejudice.