Contact details for BG / Transco - other than call centre? (maybe long)

[NickP]

Anyone know how to contact them other than by the call centre (0845

6056677) ?

Last Saturday we went to replace a section of broken soil pipe in my dads garden. Knew the location by rodding. Armed with 4 inch clay and plastic pipes (or metric equivalents) plus all other fittings to do the job. Dig, find broken pipe and discover it is an old bitumen type pipe. Probably laid late '50s or early '60s. From what is seen we have no way of repairing this, so decided to replace the entire run of about 15m with 100mm plastic. This between 2 brick built manhole things. More digging. Unfortunately a spade or fork discovered a yellow plastic gas pipe! Call the gas emergency number. Bod turns up quite rapidly and effects a temporary repair. Advises us that (a) a permanent repair will be carried out at 10am on Monday morning and (b) don't renew the soil pipe until the permanent repair is made. The soil pipe is immediately above the fractured gas pipe.

Midday monday and not a sign of anybody. Ring the call/enquiry centre - the response being "Oh no, not 10am it's booked for 10pm"

7pm a bod turns up. I'm only here to assess it, says he and goes on his way. Adding, they'll be out Tuesday morning to fix it. Gave it until midday today and called the call/enquiry centre again to be told that it is scheduled for today. Called again at 3,4,5,6,7 o'clock, similar response. Finally got somewhat irate when told the permanent repair was scheduled for 23rd August. The woman hung up on me after leaving me on hold for 10 mins or so. Called again at 8pm and was told that I would be called back by a manager immediately. I'm not holding my breath. The problem we have is that the soil pipe connects (or now does not connect) to an adjoining let property. We are paying for them to stay in a local hotel whilst the problem is corrected

Anyone know of contacting BG/Transco other than by the call centre?

I have told them that at 13.00 tomorrow I shall put the new drain in and bury the whole lot.

Any thoughts or advice thankfully received

NickP

[Steve Walker]

If you thought that the temporary repair was leaking, you would have to call the emergency people out again. As often as necessary...

[Owain]

Try Transco (Plant Location) Tel [phone] office hours, that is for Glasgow, ask for your local area.

Owain

[Newshound]

My thoughts too. I'm impressed by your forbearance, given the commercial implications. I would have replaced the soil pipe by now.

[tarquinlinbin]

contact them for what? sorry,missed the thread start...

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[Andy Hall]

Simple. Call them and tell them that there is a smell of gas in the garden.

[tarquinlinbin]

Unfortunately its not so simple,,

It appears that in the course of excavating, this chap has damaged a plastic gas main that is the property of National Grid Transco. Officially this is classed as a third party damage and if NGT choose to do so, they can seek to charge for the full cost of repairs and they regularly DO pursue for damages becuase there is so much of it going on. In years gone by, such things were not as common and the cost were largely absorbed by the company unless it was a major damage which ran into thousands or millions of pounds.

Now, there are so many people digging roads up for all sorts of reasons and so many careless contractors that there is a procedure in place for recording/documenting damages and billing for costs. It is common to send the bill direct to the householder involved, i.e if they have floggit n run landscape gardeners limited putting up a fence and they cause the damage when putting fence posts in, NGT bills the customer, not the contractor. The customer then pays and seeks redress from the contractor who will of course have 3rd partner liability insurance. Failing that, they approach their household insurance co.

If a damage/escape is reported then depending on an assessment of the situation,a temporary repair might be affected as in this case. It is then put in a program of regular recheck to ensure that it is still safe. Eventually a permanent repair is done.

I would therefore advise you not to get too pushy/stroppy with them as someone might just send you a bill for repairs. Remember, no one works for nothing these days. If someone damaged your car in a garage,you;d expect them to pay wouldnt you? Its the same for NGT. They are not a national charity or a nationalised industry any more. They are a commercial operation.

I have seen damages ranging from minor nicks of 25 mm plastic service pipe to damages causing widespread disruption,cutting off gas to thousands of users and costing millions of pounds and weeks to sort out.

The various utilities even pursue each other for damages- i,e NGT digs hole,cuts telecom calbe,BT says pyus lots of money and vice versa.

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[Mr Fizzion]

This won't help your leak problem, but might help your phone bill:

Geographic numbers for Transco courtesy of saynoto0870.com:

01709 845533 01623 413650 0191 5014300

If you use these numbers with some alternative phone service, such as

18866.com (which I highly recommend) the cost is 2p per call (*not* per minute) so it doesn't seem so bad if you hold on for 10 minutes and get disconnected.

Mr F.

[Owain]

Contact them for repairing a gas pipe wot the OP dugged up inadvertent, like.

Owain

[tarquinlinbin]

Unfortunately its not so simple,,

It appears that in the course of excavating, this chap has damaged a plastic gas main that is the property of National Grid Transco. Officially this is classed as a third party damage and if NGT choose to do so, they can seek to charge for the full cost of repairs and they regularly DO pursue for damages becuase there is so much of it going on. In years gone by, such things were not as common and the cost were largely absorbed by the company unless it was a major damage which ran into thousands or millions of pounds.

Now, there are so many people digging roads up for all sorts of reasons and so many careless contractors that there is a procedure in place for recording/documenting damages and billing for costs. It is common to send the bill direct to the householder involved, i.e if they have floggit n run landscape gardeners limited putting up a fence and they cause the damage when putting fence posts in, NGT bills the customer, not the contractor. The customer then pays and seeks redress from the contractor who will of course have 3rd partner liability insurance. Failing that, they approach their household insurance co.

If a damage/escape is reported then depending on an assessment of the situation,a temporary repair might be affected as in this case. It is then put in a program of regular recheck to ensure that it is still safe. Eventually a permanent repair is done.

I would therefore advise you not to get too pushy/stroppy with them as someone might just send you a bill for repairs. Remember, no one works for nothing these days. If someone damaged your car in a garage,you;d expect them to pay wouldnt you? Its the same for NGT. They are not a national charity or a nationalised industry any more. They are a commercial operation.

I have seen damages ranging from minor nicks of 25 mm plastic service pipe to damages causing widespread disruption,cutting off gas to thousands of users and costing millions of pounds and weeks to sort out.

The various utilities even pursue each other for damages- i,e NGT digs hole,cuts telecom calbe,BT says pyus lots of money and vice versa.

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[Andrew Gabriel]

For cable companies damaging other company's services, a fixed fee of £250 was defined, in order to ensure cable installation was viable. I don't know if this applies only to cable companies, or if it is in force between all the other services.

[tarquinlinbin]

No i doubt it would apply to gas as ive had a hand in damages caused to gas installations by cable cos,some of which are trivial couple of hundred quid jobs and some of which are hundreds of thousands of pounds jobs.

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