Contractor Damage Discovered Months Later, Would You Hold Them Accountable?

Beren

Some of you may remember my posts this summer concerning our office generator install. We recently noticed our front lights are not coming on at night (wasn't dark enough at closing time to notice until recently), and it appears that the generator install team may have cut an outside, underground electrical conduit to the front lights when they ran a gas line.

Do we own the problem at this point, since it's been roughly 5 months since the install?

genecarp

GIVEN YOUR EXPLANATION, the contractor is still responsible.

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BDB

I would say that if it is determined that they did cause the problem then NO it is not your problem, not sure how things work in your neck of the woods, but all my work has a 1 year guarantee.
Now if they come out and it is determined they were not at fault, then you should pay them for their time.

dougchips

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silvertree

Sounds like you are going to find out what kind of people the generator guys are.

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Magnettica

There's a very good possibility they hit the conduit when they were digging and didn't know it since the line was likely not energized at the time. Not sure how you hit a conduit and not know it though. It's not like finding a needle in a bundle of needles.

mdshunk

I am 100% sure I've trenched through things and not known about it. If you're bumping into rocks and stuff all the way anyhow, and nothing that looks non-organic gets drug up out of the ditch line, it's pretty easy to saw through stuff without knowing it. If it's direct buried cable, even a nice knick will work for a while until it rots off from the ground moisture.

neolitic

When I get hurt jumping to conclusions,
it's always the obvious that I tripped over.
I'd make sure that it isn't bulbs,
sensor, or a breaker before I called the guy.

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Magnettica

Speaking of which.... I had a guy who ran his own wiring to an exterior post lamp underground with regular romex. Told the customer, told the boss, both agreed to just leave it. How long ya think that'll last?

Month, year, 2 years?

mdshunk

I've replaced romex to post lights that was in the ground since the 70's already. Hard to tell. I was on a fire job a couple years back for a pretty new house that had romex run underground to the post light. It set the mulch next to the house on fire when it went bad, and took out a good bit of the house. That was probably in the ground 2 or 3 years. My answer is that the one you saw will last between 2 and 30 years.

Magnettica

Lol.... well that narrows it down. Hopefully the GFI protection will catch it before a fire happens.

Beren

Very good advice, and we definitely checked everything we could from the circuit breaker forward before calling in an electrician. (A different electrician, not the folks who did the generator install.) There's definitely a break somewhere between where the circuit enters the conduit inside the building and where it comes up outside to the first ballast.

The circuit is buried in a PVC conduit.

We're somewhat wary of the original contractors. There were multiple issues

In their defence, I don't think this conduit was flagged or marked. It doesn't exist on any of our building plans, either, but it's there. They probably cut right through it and never noticed. It's on a timer and would not be energized during the day.

Our current contractor is bringing out some test equipment so we can determine where this conduit exits the building. Once we visually confirm what happened, we'll go from there. I plan to take pretty pictures.

mdshunk

Many contracts that involve digging exclude damages to unmarked utilities. If you only had a public utility locate (One Call, Miss Utility, etc.), they won't mark your private stuff. You need to pay for a "private locate" to get your own wires and pipes marked. Yes, the generator guys probably did cut it, but in their defense, I probably would have too. I'd go half with you on it if you called me back about this, since it was half your fault for not marking them and half my fault for cutting them.

Shocking

At which the customer would say "Your the contractor, how am I supposed to know where the cicuits run"?

wizendwizard

At which I would say as a contractor, "I'm a contractor, not someone with x-ray vision!"

But I agree this sounds as if i should be a half and half deal.

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