Am I being unreasonable to feel a bit annoyed? (a long tale)

[Oldgreybeard]

quite possible they repaired a leak on the same main further along - just respond to say the job is not closed as the leak is still evident and be prepared to do this copious times!

Most companies have excellent records for urban environments but once it gets all a bit green and rolling hills they fall over !

On the plus side you have probably gotten someone elses leak sorted for them without them ever knowing about it!

Moxi

I walked right up to the adjoining road, that carries the main that feeds the village. No sign of any repair work at all that I could see, doesn't even look as if the manhole cover near the point where the pipe our lane tee's off from the main has been lifted any time recently. As far as I know, the pipe down our lane feeds four houses. Three very close together, close to where the pipe joins the main (and just above where the worst leak is, the one that caused the ice across the lane) then one more further down the lane (and it's that bit of pipe that is hissing away like mad by our place).

Our neighbour has now been told, over the phone, that the email and web tracking link he received was sent out "in error" (if so then it was sent out "in error" to us as well, for a different job number) and that WW are awaiting approval from the council to dig up the road. Having encountered this process, I rang the chap at the council that handled our Section 50 notice, when we had to dig across the same lane to run a drain pipe, to see if he knew anything. Seems our neighbour was also fed a load of BS by WW, as the big utilities can make emergency repairs for major leaks like this using a very fast (as in do the work and notify afterwards) system, they don't need to go through the full process of getting consent from the council first.

Even if they did need to get prior consent and go through the full Section 50 process, they haven't yet applied to the council it seems. When I submitted a Section 50 notice I sent it to the council first thing in the morning and got consent to dig up the road 7 hours later the same day, so I'm sure the utilities have at least that fast a track to make repairs. Our job wasn't even urgent, it could have taken two or three weeks and it wouldn't have bothered me.

[Moxi]

Emergency work wouldn’t apply to this leak I’m afraid, you’re talking major outages of water supply to large areas or cataclysmic flooding - does anyone recall the London ring road flood a few years back where a fifty inch main ruptured and flooded an underpass and closed the inner London orbital- that’s the sort of scale for emergency works.

It’s galling but I’m afraid the only way to get this done is how you are doing it now - get enough people to continuously annoy them into action - horrible way to get action but this is the world we live in I’m sorry to say

Moxi

[Oldgreybeard]

Emergency work wouldn’t apply to this leak I’m afraid, you’re talking major outages of water supply to large areas or cataclysmic flooding - does anyone recall the London ring road flood a few years back where a fifty inch main ruptured and flooded an underpass and closed the inner London orbital- that’s the sort of scale for emergency works.

It’s galling but I’m afraid the only way to get this done is how you are doing it now - get enough people to continuously annoy them into action - horrible way to get action but this is the world we live in I’m sorry to say

Moxi

Thanks for that, although quite how they manage to define a leak that came very close to causing myself, and the driver of the car that slid down the lane, serious injury as not being an emergency does sort of beggar belief. In my line of work, anything that presented a significant risk of injury or death would have been elevated as needing immediate attention, and not just sent to the bottom of the pile.

I've decided to enlist the help of our neighbours and excavate along our verge, where the loud hissing noise is coming from, tomorrow. We're going to dig down parallel to the very edge of the tarmac (which is where our boundary is) and see what we find. We can already see gravel on the surface, washed up by the water, and as there is no gravel naturally occurring here (we are on very heavy clay soil) then the most likely source of the gravel is the sub-base for the lane, I think. I suspect the water leaks have washed away the sub-base, just as they washed away around our old fence posts and is most probably now washing away the compacted type 1 under our new wall foundation, as well as that under our drive.

The aim is to gather evidence, then look at making a case against WW for damages, as well as to try and re-direct the water away from the foundations for our wall (I have some spare lengths of 110mm soil pipe). I'm now close to 100% sure that what we thought was damage caused by natural springs has, all along, been caused by their water leaks.

I've been helped out with finding email addresses for the CEO and Operations Director, both of whom have been sent polite, concise, emails regarding the misleading information we've been given. Whether this has any effect I don't know, but as you say, it can't hurt to keep bothering them until they finally do something. They've known about this for over 9 years now, that I know of (and that I have evidence of) so they really should have sorted it out before now.

[Oldgreybeard]

The saga continues. Still heard nothing at all from Wessex Water, but a crew arrived an hour ago and closed the lane, so we're now stuck here until such time as they finish whatever they are doing. No notice, not even a knock on the door to say "sorry, you're stuck in your house until we've finished" (they estimate two to three days, now they've seen the extent of the problem). My wife's bouncing off the walls as she was driving down to Devon to see her mother for a few days this morning, and has had to cancel as we're stuck here with only pedestrian access (can't get the car out until they've finished, apparently).

The crew that turned out are contractors, who have been told nothing about the hissing and the known leaks(s) at all, they've been told to dig up the lane adjacent to the old village water pump (which isn't where the Wessex Water pipe is). Decent blokes, though, I walked them along the line of the pipe, pointed out where the pipe ran, using a combination of photos I took in 2013 and the positions of the stop cocks in the lane, together with the connection point to the water main in the bigger road at the top of the hill. Being practical, knowledgable, blokes, they spotted right off that where they'd been told to dig the lane up most probably wasn't where the pipe was.

The good news is that they've now rung the local inspector, who is on his way out. I've asked if they can suggest the inspector comes and has a word with me, as I have photos and correspondence going back to 2011 about this pipe, so they agreed to do that, and added that the local inspector is a really good bloke and not at all like the clowns at WW Bath. Last time I dealt with a local bloke from WW he was very helpful, fingers crossed this one is the same.

Not hard to see why some of our infrastructure is in a poor way, or why utility costs are so high, given the level of incompetence I've witnessed from WW recently, though. Does make me wonder how bad things are in other areas. I presume the cost of this crew closing the lane and digging in the wrong place just adds to the water charges most people pay. When I was working, we had a continuous improvement programme in place, and everyone had it drummed into their head that the most important thing to reduce costs, bar none, was "Right First Time". Might be an idea for WW to adopt something similar - could save them a lot of money.

[AE-NMidlands]

Not hard to see why some of our infrastructure is in a poor way, or why utility costs are so high, given the level of incompetence I've witnessed from WW recently, though. Does make me wonder how bad things are in other areas. I presume the cost of this crew closing the lane and digging in the wrong place just adds to the water charges most people pay. When I was working, we had a continuous improvement programme in place, and everyone had it drummed into their head that the most important thing to reduce costs, bar none, was "Right First Time". Might be an idea for WW to adopt something similar - could save them a lot of money.

You are missing the point that it is really just a giant money-go-round, aka swindle.

The "regulator" penalises them if they don't improve the network, measured by spend, so they spend. The more they spend (on contractors) the less they get penalised. It's like GDP: it gets better every time there is something like a car crash, and if there are all the extra costs associated with a fatality then it goes up even more.

Except that "contractors" can be wholly-owned subsidiaries... and profits from such sensible investments can be passed straight to shareholders without criticism from the regulator.

It stinks.

[Oldgreybeard]

Not hard to see why some of our infrastructure is in a poor way, or why utility costs are so high, given the level of incompetence I've witnessed from WW recently, though. Does make me wonder how bad things are in other areas. I presume the cost of this crew closing the lane and digging in the wrong place just adds to the water charges most people pay. When I was working, we had a continuous improvement programme in place, and everyone had it drummed into their head that the most important thing to reduce costs, bar none, was "Right First Time". Might be an idea for WW to adopt something similar - could save them a lot of money.

You are missing the point that it is really just a giant money-go-round, aka swindle.

The "regulator" penalises them if they don't improve the network, measured by spend, so they spend. The more they spend (on contractors) the less they get penalised. It's like GDP: it gets better every time there is something like a car crash, and if there are all the extra costs associated with a fatality then it goes up even more.

Except that "contractors" can be wholly-owned subsidiaries... and profits from such sensible investments can be passed straight to shareholders without criticism from the regulator.

It stinks.

I fear you are spot on, although the optimist in me would rather they worked in the interests of consumers and the general public.

The blokes digging the hole have found the old feed to the pre-war standpipe, which they've confirmed is dead (another team had confirmed that some time prior to 2011, according to a neighbour). They are now awaiting further instructions from WW, I believe. No sign of the inspector coming out yet. Pity, as a ten minute chat with him, myself and my neighbour and we could pretty much be sure of drawing a line down the lane where the old pipe runs, and, I think, give them a pretty good idea as to where two of the larger leaks in it most likely are.

They are getting a CAT today, and as I know for sure there are no other services under the lane that should enable them to locate the pipe. Goodness only knows why a team is sent out without a CAT in the first place, I'd have thought their normal H&S rules would require them to use one before digging holes in the road.

[Oldgreybeard]

You are missing the point that it is really just a giant money-go-round, aka swindle.

The "regulator" penalises them if they don't improve the network, measured by spend, so they spend. The more they spend (on contractors) the less they get penalised. It's like GDP: it gets better every time there is something like a car crash, and if there are all the extra costs associated with a fatality then it goes up even more.

Except that "contractors" can be wholly-owned subsidiaries... and profits from such sensible investments can be passed straight to shareholders without criticism from the regulator.

It stinks.

Just had positive confirmation of this. The sub-contractors have found that the dead pipe they were directed to "repair" isn't the cause of the problem, so they've now filled the hole in and marked the job as completed. Water is still gushing down the lane, but they popped in to see me and apologise that there is nothing they can do and that we need to raise another report with WW. They only get paid to dig a hole in the marked spot and their request to do a quick run with a CAT along the lane to try and trace the pipe and locate further leaks was denied by WW, apparently.

The good news is that they've re-opened the lane and my wife's on her way to Devon, albeit a few hours late. I've opened yet another report with WW, stating that the leaks aren't fixed, and adding that when their valve at the top of the lane is shut off the leaks all stop, as does the hissing noise, so it is definitely coming from their pipe. I managed to get their contractors to confirm this, and they've agreed to report their conversation with me back to WW, but they did add that their reports are usually just ignored.

[Tinbum]

It's just a total farce isn't it- reminds me of Yorkshire water and openreach.

Also the NHS.

I had and MRI scan the other day and read the report online that reads " just a note to show the MRI scan has not shown anything suggestive of a sinister problem" it then goes on to say I've been discharged. Well thanks for for that!

[Oldgreybeard]

It is a total farce, and I feel really sorry for their contractors (so much so I gave them a bottle of booze each) as they were really getting their ear bent today by people irate over the way WW have mishandled this. Most people around here have lived here for years, our neighbour was born in the house he lives in, and he's a few years older than me. The ten years we've been here makes us the new incomers, but a lot of the locals have a massive amount of stored knowledge about the area, its history and where things like underground pipes and cables run, all information that should be invaluable to utility companies like WW, but which they seemingly just ignore.

One of them told me that he'd been out to the same place to do work for WW four or five times in the space of a few weeks, because each time WW gave them the wrong location to dig. Seemed a knowledgeable chap, too, knew enough to very quickly (and wholly unofficially) locate where he thought the most likely leak locations were, with a listening stick. They matched where I have long thought the leaks to be, so I've unofficially sprayed some line marker crosses on the lane.

I'll happily bet that WW will decide the leaks aren't where my crosses are, if they ever bother to come out again.

[Mr Gus]

Reminds me of Tesla.

(arranged for a home service appt to look at the latest craziness with cameras, ..whilst it was cold & acting up ..*perhaps* even catching it this time, with acknowledgment of a fault)
That got cancelled by tesla & rearranged for new year without asking us, at wich point all tiny keyboard phone communication s cease (instigated by them, leaving consumers high & dry, if you wish to carry on you have to sit back on the phone to re-open comms, meaning 10 - 35 min wait in a queue, to re-hash everything with yet another person.

Not so merry-fudgin-go-rounds!