Openreach damage during installation 18 January at 4:46PM in Broadband & internet access 22 replies 612 views

prologica

Hi All,
Had fibre broadband installed yesterday. In drilling through an external wall the engineer blew out quite a chunk of a recently rendered wall. It would have been far better if he had drilled from the outside as internal plaster is so much easier to repair, or to have applied less pressure. 

Anyone had any success with getting Openreach to take responsibility?

thanks
D

prologica

Hi All,

I had fibre broadband installed yesterday. In drilling through an external wall the engineer blew out quite a chunk of a recently rendered wall. It would have been far better if he had drilled from the outside as internal plaster is so much easier to repair, or to have applied less pressure. 

Where do I stand with getting Openreach to repair/compensate?

thanks
D

serpico100

Not had to deal with this type of problem, but this may help if you need to complain about the damage:

https://www.openreach.com/help-and-support/when-to-get-in-touch-with-openreach/complaints-policy

diystarter7

Hi OP

Any pics of this. I ask as often the bits can be stuck back on and touched up. This IMHO saves the time and trouble of chasing, waiting and the will only do that bit rightly so and if its more than a year or so old it will stick out
Your choice, good luck

Thanks

SuzeQStan

Hi OP - not the same thing at all but we recently had our OR install done and the technician had to drill from inside out as we had a large full/frozen 300ltr water barrel in the way preventing outside drilling.

agree with @diystarter7 - could it just be patched up? 

On a side note my OH ended up advising the OR technician how he could do the install as he couldn’t figure out how to get a wire through a piece of trunking.  Was quite funny - good to know OH has a job he could fall back on if need be lol.

MikeJXE

prologica said:

Hi All,
Had fibre broadband installed yesterday. In drilling through an external wall the engineer blew out quite a chunk of a recently rendered wall. It would have been far better if he had drilled from the outside as internal plaster is so much easier to repair, or to have applied less pressure. 

Anyone had any success with getting Openreach to take responsibility?

thanks
D

Nip down the builders merchant and ask for a small bag of ready mixed render then patch it up and paint.

Very simple job and a lot less hassle 

HillStreetBlues

prologica said:

 recently rendered wall.

How recent?  Did you tell the engineer?

prologica said:

It would have been far better if he had drilled from the outside as internal plaster

Did you state this to the engineer before work commenced?

Aylesbury_Duck

Take photos of the damage, write a short factual statement of exactly what happened and ask what they plan to do about it.  They're obliged to sort it if it arose from their own negligence, whether that's sending their own contractor or agreeing a payment to a contractor of your choice once you have a quote.  They may ask you to get a couple of quotes but I suspect it's a relatively low cost repair so they may not bother.

diystarter7

MikeJXE said:

prologica said:

Hi All,
Had fibre broadband installed yesterday. In drilling through an external wall the engineer blew out quite a chunk of a recently rendered wall. It would have been far better if he had drilled from the outside as internal plaster is so much easier to repair, or to have applied less pressure. 

Anyone had any success with getting Openreach to take responsibility?

thanks
D

Nip down the builders merchant and ask for a small bag of ready mixed render then patch it up and paint.

Very simple job and a lot less hassle 

Depending on the breaks, pieces it can just be stuck back on with gripfil/etc and depending on how new the paint is or colour - after a day you won't even note it

We had a an approx 3 x 1.5 inch ovel shape palster nocked out on the inside as they fitted a brand new door and side pannels - the  - i was working from home in the through lounge and say a bit of dust then bag on the wooded fllor - the builder wrognly wassuned there was an 8 inche wall there but it was less ie 4 inhes and a bit as it was towards the inside of the hole - they offered to repair - it was a hite painted wall - i did the repir myself with care over the weeked with clear glue, jet it dry, smudges a little paint on hairline craks wipped it and after a few days never noted it again

Thanks

diystarter7

2 threads

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/79785307#Comment_79785307

iniltous

Standard policy is to drill from inside to out , that is less likely to hit any  services within the wall , drilling from outside to inside is more likely to hit ‘ hidden’ services or to drill into the back of something on the internal wall, like a radiator.