Western Power Damage to Property

frugalfiz · 19 March 2019 at 1:06PM

Not sure if this is the right place for this post.
Western Power are doing essential works 2-3 metres from my C18th Grade 2 listed cottage. On the first day of works, my tenants contacted me to say water was coming through the ceiling when they had a shower. The plumber came out and found the waste pipe had become detatched under the bath. It has a fixed panel bath and he said he had never come across this in 30 years and suggested vibration from the works caused it.

I have emailed Western Power and they say they can only pay for damage if they are negligent, which they say they were not. My view is they have a duty of care when using vibrating machinery so close to an C18th property. The lane is only a car's width wide and we understand from previous works in the lane that the ground is very rocky, so the works would have caused vibration in the foundations. I have no doubt the vibrations caused the waste pipe to disconnect.

It wasn't an expensive repair and we can repaint the ceiling, but its a matter of principal! Is it worth pursuing and any legal terminology I can use to pursuade them?
Thanks

TadleyBaggie · 19 March 2019 at 1:22PM

I can believe vibration caused it to detatch but it must have been in a fairly poor state to start with. I'd be surprised if Western Power would cough up.

To have any chance you would need proof that it was securely fitted before they started their work, and since you haven't had sight of for 30 years that is going to be tough to prove.

Aylesbury_Duck · 19 March 2019 at 1:33PM

I don't think you have any chance, unless there is other visible damage caused by vibration. To shake the waste free it must have been loose to begin with and I would have thought that vibrations strong enough to do so would have caused other visible consequences such as cracked plaster.

frugalfiz · 19 March 2019 at 1:36PM

TadleyBaggie wrote: »

I can believe vibration caused it to detatch but it must have been in a fairly poor state to start with. I'd be surprised if Western Power would cough up.

To have any chance you would need proof that it was securely fitted before they started their work, and since you haven't had sight of for 30 years that is going to be tough to prove.

Thanks, it was a new bathroom fitted 8 years ago. Too much of a coincidence that it happened the same day they started work but sounds like its not worth pursuing.

Fosterdog · 19 March 2019 at 2:22PM

frugalfiz wrote: »

Thanks, it was a new bathroom fitted 8 years ago. Too much of a coincidence that it happened the same day they started work but sounds like its not worth pursuing.

Not coincidence at all if it wasn't secured properly from day one but not loose enough to come fully detached, even a slight vibration could have been enough to make it come apart.

Most people would agree that it was most likely the vibration that caused the final detachment but it's highly doubtful that it managed to vibrate so much it detached a properly Secured pipe.

Bermonia · 19 March 2019 at 4:05PM

As Fosterdog says it may have been the result but it certainly wasn’t the cause... of the vibrations had been so vigorous as to detach a properly secured pipe, then you would see other ramifications of this throughout the property.

Manxman_in_exile · 20 March 2019 at 1:21PM

Carrying out essential works ie they have to be done?

I don't think that it's reasonably foreseeable that works carried out outside your property would cause the bath waste pipe to become detached. Seems a bit too remote.

Western Power Damage to Property

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