Legal advice/Scottish Gas help

[Graeme]

A bit of a strange one...

But basically yesterday Scottish gas were doing work on the upstairs neighbours boiler and have installed quite a large pipe, just to the right of my front door running all the way down to the ground in my garden. No one asked for permission to do this, which included digging up part of the garden, drilling holes in the front of my house to install this terrible looking service pipe at the front of the house! There are also a number holes in the front wall of the house above the door as well.

Not happy about this and not happy that the value of the house may be affected by this as it looks really bad. I've already phoned Scottish gas and got passed about until finally spoke to someone relevant and passed on my details to the local depot, so I have to wait for a phone call now.

The neighbour is an old woman, who has no interest in seeing things from my point of view and would rather bring up the fact she is old, not well, going blind... a bit of f*ckwit. She has basically blamed Scottish gas and said "The guy said if the owner has any problems to call scottish gas" and something about "it's the regulations nowadays"

So does anyone have any good advice on dealing with Scottish Gas or whoever they are just now? More importantly can anyone offer any legal advice or details of a legal advisor in dealing with this matter?

[kenny]

I am 99.99% certain Scottish Gas have no right to do this and are liable for putting things right.

You know the best person to start with for matters of this nature! Once you get by the "everything is fcked" rant, you should get some help.

If it were me I would be on the phone to Scottish Gas and refuse to go away until someone from Scottish Gas met me at the house to discuss exactly how they are going to fix it.

[quango86]

if its a new boiler installed ul find this is the condense pipe from the high effiency boiler they can be run into a gutter or taken down the wall like that and thats known as a soak away. they holes should be sealed up if there next to the flue as this is against gas regs. unfortunatly they dont care how they annoy when these pipes are fitted I had a few complaints with them when fitting they pipes outside

[lee_fife2005]

I work for BT and if we need to dig a cable up that is in someone's garden then we cannot do this unless we have the home owners permission to dig(I pressume that scottish gas would be the same).
I would suggest in taking as much photo's as you can and keep on calling them untill you get somewhere.
Hope you get this sorted.

[Graeme]

You know the best person to start with for matters of this nature!

It was the first port of call No one does it better!

Cheers for the comments guys, much appreciated.

After numerous calls I managed to find out it was Scottish Gas and a company called Intelihome ltd who were responsible for the work. Contacted both companies and they turned up today to take a look. Agreed the pipe would be removed and the damage repaired.
Interestingly Intelihome have this slogan "Intelligent solutions for home maintenance" anyone ever heard of them or dealt with them?

[bri_jnr]

Good to hear you got this resolved, I'd struggle to keep my cool.

[martin]

Once it's all sorted get on to them for compensation for the worry it has caused you(and us).

[Graeme]

Good to hear you got this resolved, I'd struggle to keep my cool.

I did, I think I used all the willpower I have not to shout and swear at people. I spoke to a couple of people today that were very helpful, one of whom was a lady at SGN who seemed to have access to a lot of information and seemed concerned/happy to help. I think she actually managed to speed things up a bit as well.

Once it's all sorted get on to them for compensation for the worry it has caused you(and us).

First thing is to get this pipe the hell off the house! Then make sure the repair work is satisfactory, that will be fun.


ps. Cheers Mike

[liam44]

You know the best person to start with for matters of this nature!

It was the first port of call No one does it better!

Cheers for the comments guys, much appreciated.

After numerous calls I managed to find out it was Scottish Gas and a company called Intelihome ltd who were responsible for the work. Contacted both companies and they turned up today to take a look. Agreed the pipe would be removed and the damage repaired.
Interestingly Intelihome have this slogan "Intelligent solutions for home maintenance" anyone ever heard of them or dealt with them?

god damn contractors!!! hope you get it sorted bud

[Graeme]

Pipe removed and damage repaired, just as well!

[kenny]