Virgin Damaged My Water Supply Digging Pavement Up

[paulh789]

Hi

Just had Yorkshire Water call me today and tell me my normal household bill for water has risen to £17500.00 over the last 6 months They think I have a leak from the meter to the house. About 5 months ago Virgin Media dug all the path up installing fibre optics outside on the pavement and it looks like they have clearly damaged the pipe as.

Anyone know who to contact at Virgin for this I have only so long to get it fixed before I literally end up owing the £17500.00 

[goslow]

Won't see your pic until approved but ...

I have just had to replace the water supply pipe to my home. You should be eligible for consideration of a leak allowance if fixed within a certain time (in my area the criteria was 30 days from leak being discovered to getting it fixed).

Did VM dig up any of your property as part of their work? Do you know where exactly the leak is?

AIUI, the pipe is the water company's responsibility up to your property boundary line and your responsibility after that (although gets more complicated if a shared supply pipe is involved).

Edit: Image now showing. Have you looked under the covers for the water meter and the VM cover in the pavement? Can you see water in those?

There would be something of a mismatch in the depth of services for VM to have directly damaged the water pipe (if each was buried in the correct way). The water pipe should be at a depth of 750mm (older installations may be more like 600mm) and VM should be at 250mm to 350mm. Not impossible for VM to have shaken something loose though, I suppose, during digging or reinstatement.

[Tom_W1]

Hi @paulh789 thanks for your post here in the Community, although we're sorry to hear of your concerns raised here.

We would like to look into this further for you, but as mentioned here it is unlikely that we would have dug far enough depth-wise to be able to interfere with any water pipes as part of the works.

If you can reply with if there is water within the VM cover in the payment we can take this further for you.

Many thanks

[paulh789]

Thank you for the advice it is much appreciated. They did not come onto my property it was all work on the footpath outside my home. I have looked in the Water meter hole outside there is no water in the hole. I am hoping that I have the 30 days from Yorkshire Water. 

[Tom_W1]

Hi @paulh789 thanks for your reply.

We will try and help with the investigation where possible but we may be quite limited.

I'll send you a DM to get some more info so please expect this to arrive shortly and respond directly when you can.

Many thanks

[paulh789]

Will do thanks

[goslow]

FWIW, I would emphatically not rely on VM doing anything significant whatsoever to help you out (even if it turns out VM was actually responsible). Regular topics on here routinely show VM dragging its feet to get even very simply/easy property damage repaired in a timely fashion, such as patching up brickwork, plastering etc. Mobilising a contractor in the limited time you have seems highly unlikely from VM. You may need to take your own action, sooner rather than later to investigate and resolve, if necessary.

The Yorkshire Water website says it is 28 days from notification to be able to claim a leak allowance

https://www.yorkshirewater.com/your-water/leaks/

Based on my own recent experience, the 28 day restriction is totally unrealistic to try to get in 3 quotes for repair or renewal and then add on the lead time to start work. The firm I used to renew my pipe had a lead time alone of 3 1/2 weeks. Fortunately I didn't need to claim a leak allowance.

On the link above, there is a procedure for testing if the leak is on your supply pipe (by isolating the stopcock in the house for a period, say an hour, and recording the meter before/after).

If you really do owe £17500 across a 6 month period, my back of an envelope reverse calc's come up with a leak rate of something like 38 litres per minute which is one big old leak of water. The leak I had was 22 litres per hour and that was enough for me to be able to hear water flowing on the internal pipework and see a sunken area on the driveway.

If it really is leaking at that rate, it is amazing you can see no trace of it on the surface (ground sinking or soaking wet, hearing or seeing water at the surface, hearing water flowing in pipes in your home when the internal stop tap is off etc. etc.).

You could check your home insurance to see what sort of cover you have but it seems that external supply leaks are often not covered for most policies (requires a separate policy with Homeserve) or the insurers would repair damage caused by the leak but not the cost of replacing/repairing the supply pipe itself if it leaked through wear and tear.

That is such a big leak of water that I wouldn't discount some sort of meter/billing error so you should also investigate that IMHO if you can't find evidence of a big leak when testing.

Different water companies operate different schemes and financial help for renewing supply pipes (instead of repairing). Some may help with the cost of renewal (esp. if the existing pipe is lead). In my area the water company contributed £100 to the cost of renewal (although trying to claim that is proving to be something of a trial of endurance!).

Finally, if you do have a leak on your supply pipe, one of the contractors who came to look at my leaking water supply pipe mentioned this

https://qinov8.com/aquapea/

as a possible means to make a (temporary?) repair to an underground leak. A success rate of 71% in reducing/stopping the leak is claimed on the company website for types of pipes used in the UK. I have no direct experience of this myself so do your own research into it and use at your own risk!

Hope you manage to get to the bottom of the issue and resolve it (without having to pay £17.5k!)

[jpeg1]

@goslow has given you some excellent advice in his posts above.

In particular, don't rely on VM doing anything about this withing the necessary timescale. They work through subcontractors to do the outside work and there is always a significant delay in getting anything done.

But the apparent size of the leak just doesn't seem reasonable.  For water to come out at that rate it would have to released at considerable pressure. It would have lifted paving slabs.  Are you sure there has been no obvious signs of a leak in the immediate area?  You've probably had rain during the last few days, but something should have shown before then.