What to do about Heating Engineer drilling wire in wall?

[sh41]

Hi all, I'm looking for advice on what to do about an incident that occurred on Tuesday this week.

I'm having a new heating system installed. The Heating Engineer was drilling when suddenly the RCD kicked in and all of the power to the house went off. I went and spoke to him to find out what happened and while I can't remember exactly what was said it was along the lines of: "Sorry, I wasn't expecting there to be a wire there. Don't worry about it though I only hit the plastic, I've looked in the hole and there's no copper, but I'll get our electrician to look at it anyway."

Later that evening I started to get a bad feeling about it and decided to have a look at it myself. The end of a red rawlplug had been put in the hole. I hooked it out and used a USB microscope to take this picture:


As soon as I saw copper I stopped messing around with it.

The next morning only the Electrician was on site and when I asked him whether he'd had a look at the drill hole he said he hadn't. I asked that he look at it as a priority as we were about to go into the long bank holiday weekend and I wanted to know that things were safe before he finished for the week.

To cut a long story short, it turns out that the Heating Engineer had hit the wire four times with three holes, exposing copper on all four occasions. One of the holes had managed to hit both ring main cables at the same time.

The hole that triggered the RCD was this one higher on the wall:


And during the repair we discovered these two holes lower down:


To give full context this is what it looked like after the Electrician had finished his repair (the copper pipe was removed part way through):


And there are some of the bits that were removed showing the damage.



My question is: should I be worried about this? My concern is that the Heating Engineer left site on Tuesday evening, apparently without making sure that the Electrician had checked the drill hole for problems or was going to check it. My non-professional take on this is that the site was left in an unsafe condition and it makes me question the competence of the Heating Engineer. Is that a fair take or am I overreacting? I have only employed one company to do this work. As far as I know the Heating Engineer and the Electrician work for the same firm.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

Cheers

 

[Fleeting]

Wasn't expecting them to be there they drilled directly above that fused spur so they should have expected them to be there. The repair is a total bodge and cannot be left like that, I suspect there are through crimps on the repair which are not ideal on solid conductors and insulation tape serves no purpose whatsoever.

 

[UNG]

Hi all, I'm looking for advice on what to do about an incident that occurred on Tuesday this week.

I'm having a new heating system installed. The Heating Engineer was drilling when suddenly the RCD kicked in and all of the power to the house went off. I went and spoke to him to find out what happened and while I can't remember exactly what was said it was along the lines of: "Sorry, I wasn't expecting there to be a wire there. Don't worry about it though I only hit the plastic, I've looked in the hole and there's no copper, but I'll get our electrician to look at it anyway."

Later that evening I started to get a bad feeling about it and decided to have a look at it myself. The end of a red rawlplug had been put in the hole. I hooked it out and used a USB microscope to take this picture:

View attachment 13601
As soon as I saw copper I stopped messing around with it.

The next morning only the Electrician was on site and when I asked him whether he'd had a look at the drill hole he said he hadn't. I asked that he look at it as a priority as we were about to go into the long bank holiday weekend and I wanted to know that things were safe before he finished for the week.

To cut a long story short, it turns out that the Heating Engineer had hit the wire four times with three holes, exposing copper on all four occasions. One of the holes had managed to hit both ring main cables at the same time.

The hole that triggered the RCD was this one higher on the wall:
View attachment 13603

And during the repair we discovered these two holes lower down:
View attachment 13602

To give full context this is what it looked like after the Electrician had finished his repair (the copper pipe was removed part way through):
View attachment 13604

And there are some of the bits that were removed showing the damage.
View attachment 13605


My question is: should I be worried about this?

Yes a very poor repair IMO unless it is a temporary repair pending coming back to fix it properly

My concern is that the Heating Engineer left site on Tuesday evening, apparently without making sure that the Electrician had checked the drill hole for problems or was going to check it. My non-professional take on this is that the site was left in an unsafe condition and it makes me question the competence of the Heating Engineer. Is that a fair take or am I overreacting? I have only employed one company to do this work. As far as I know the Heating Engineer and the Electrician work for the same firm.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

Cheers

It is difficult to see from the pictures how safe or unsafe this might be without carrying out some tests to check. I don't think you are overreacting as this is something that should never have happened in the first place had the heating engineer used his eyes and noted the position of the spur unit and the likelyhood of cables going up the wall from it

 

[Andy™]

is that 'repair' a cable thats been wrapped in tape? complete bodge and needs repaired properly. tape is not suitable

he should have fully been expecting a cable there. its right above a fused spur where youd expect a cable to be

Youre not over reacting. it should never have been left like that

 

[sh41]

Thanks all, good to know that my instincts were right.

Is there any specific process I should be going through to ensure that I get the work completed correctly?

The company is both Gas Safe and NICEIC registered, is there a complaint route I should take or is the first step to take it up directly with the company?

Can I or should I block them from doing any more work until I've got guarantees that a competent person will be supervising the work?

Thanks again!

 

[Andy™]

complain to the company that it hasnt been fixed correctly. give them a chance to deal with it first. if that doesnt work, complain to NICEIC but expect them to basically tell you to do one, they dont care about dodgy work, theyll only take interest if they claim to be registered when they are not

 

[revjames]

Use the term 'engineer', in this case, with a massive pinch of salt

 

[binky]

Ahh, the magic of pipe stranglers...

Accidents happen, how the company deals with the repairs is what matters most. To me that is always the mark of a good company.

 

[sh41]

Thanks again everyone. I'm expecting a call from the company owner on Monday. I'll raise my concerns with them and we'll see how they deal with it.

 

[kerching]

I doubt he i an Engineer ( apart from in his dillusional self promotional ego ) at best he is a gas registered glorified repairer


Locked to prevent resurrection (again)