Help needed

Drewwypoo · Sep 29, 2011

Hey, first time poster ill try to explain the situation.

We had a burst pipe in january and the kitchen ceiling caved in and flooded the kitchen extension and dining room, we got a electrician and plumber out straight away, the electrician wired up a new RCD and made the wires safe

Insurance are paying out and the builders came in 3 months ago to remove the old kitchen and got their own electrician in to take the lights down and apparantly charged for making the sockets safe....even though they were already made safe so we in effect were paying twice, not that bothered though as insurance are covering it.

Plasterers came out to put up new ceiling and plaster kitchen walls, then the drying company came in to put in dryers. We are currently living elsewhere and the drying company said that leaving them on would be fine, but just in case we went back mid week to check on them and noticed that all the sockets downstairs were off (bar 3 in the kitchen and 1 in the little bedroom.) But the RCD didnt trip.

We rang drying company and they said they don't have their own electrician and to try the builder, the builders electrician was on holiday, insurance said to get someone out ourselves which we did and he says that all sockets are not on a ring so finding thr fault would be near impossible, and also the RCD isnt installed correctly. £750 for 3 ring mains we were quoted.

Insurance aren't paying out but we are stumped to get £750 together and building work can't finish til we do and also need to remove laminate flooring and carpets, well the laminate has no chance of going back down so thats more ontop (its already been 9 months since the flood and havnt got it dried out properly.)

Is anyone to blame? 2 electricians came out, one did the rcd and did it wrong, one inspected it and ticked off saying its fine, then drying company blew it with their equipment, at not one point did anyone say we had a problem with electrics.

The drying company claim they just plug it in and expect the wiring to be fine, even though he plugged the heater into a socket that was hanging from the wall.

Just want to know peoples opinions on what to do next, surely we shouldnt be expected to pay for new wiring now after already having two electricians out saying the electrics were safe so they must be partly to blame and the drying company for just plugging the heater into a plug socket hanging off the wall.

Any input would be appreciated

Thanks,
Drew

trev · Sep 29, 2011

I'm sure Geordie will give the same advice as me mate and he'll probably be posting here to keep us cable junkies up to date. Best of luck, I hope there's good stuff coming your way.

ezzzekiel · Sep 29, 2011

Im localish too seaham if you get stuck can take a look

Drewwypoo · Sep 30, 2011

Just thought id update,

Last week we rang the contract manager who is "supposed" to be organizing all the work asking to send us a copy of the invoice from the electrician he sent out to my other address, well he sent it to the property getting the work, but at the time i didn't know it had been posted there and rang back asking for a copy as we hadnt received it, well the receptionist sent a different copy of just the letter attached to the invoice,

So the contract manager just sent the invoice on its own from the electrician to other address, the receptionist has buggered him over as the letter she sent out which was the covering letter for invoice(which the builder chose not to send a copy of) which i received today and this says;

Dear Rob,

R.e (my address) Report

After carrying out electrical work to kitchen, only remove lights made safe, isolated the supply to gas cooker, noted the extractor needed replacing, all of which would have no effect on the sockets not working in the dining room, but would be happy to return to test if instructed.

The above works and report was carried out on the 18th July 2011.

Kind Regards....

So the building manager knew fine well that the sockets in dining room werent working and was supposed to get the electrician back out to test if needed.

Well the contract manager sent in the drying company knowing full well that the sockets had a fault (note earlier the dining room socket was hanging off wall) and the drying company put the heater into that socket, the fan into another double socket and the dehumidifier into the same double socket.

And all the way along the contract manager has said that the electrics had been checked with no faults. So he's covering his back and lying knowing he should have got them fixed before bringing in the dryers and is happy enough to let us foot the bill for his mistake.

He can't even claim that the letter was just filed away in the office and he never knew about it, because the letter from the electrician was addressed to him.

I don't think he'll be happy with his receptionist when he realises she sent out the letter pretty much stating that he is at fault.

But now the insurance company arent paying out, we need to claim from the builders themselves for the work and all this seems like alot of effort and annoyance that could easily have been avoided if the contract manager actually did his job properly