i hope someone might be able to help with a current issue.
So a bit of background. About 1 year ago I got the gas supply to our house changed to an outside meter box. They moled through from the pavement and I told them I would be putting a drive in so asked them to make sure it would be deep enough.
Here we are 1 year later and the driveway is underway. The guys went down roughly 20cm and fortunately no sign of the pipes. They have today been using a wacker plate and digger to level out the type 1 and compact. A few hours later we get a smell of gas in the house by the old disconnected pipe (also by the electric supply).
Call out the gas people and have about 5 guys on site for about 5 hours trying to identify the problem. (Not that they actually did much more than an hours work tops). In the end they concluded that we have a small leak between the main supply and our outside meter box. They think the wacker or digger driving over and compacting the soil may have damaged it.
Onto the bad bit. Firstly they want to Bill me for this (and it's likely to be over £1k already). They also want to come back tomorrow and start digging up some of the driveway to see if they can prove it was the driveway guys who caused the damage. This is on double time as its Sunday and I also have the driveway guys who are hoping to be laying the paving blocks tomorrow.
So does anyone know where I stand with this? Surely when paying for a new pipe to be installed and explaining about the drive it would be expected that cars etc would be driving over it. I'm not sure what to do and certainly can't afford a couple of thousand £. The driveway company have public liability but am worries they won't pay out and I will have to foot the bill.
Thanks
So a bit of background. About 1 year ago I got the gas supply to our house changed to an outside meter box. They moled through from the pavement and I told them I would be putting a drive in so asked them to make sure it would be deep enough.
Here we are 1 year later and the driveway is underway. The guys went down roughly 20cm and fortunately no sign of the pipes. They have today been using a wacker plate and digger to level out the type 1 and compact. A few hours later we get a smell of gas in the house by the old disconnected pipe (also by the electric supply).
Call out the gas people and have about 5 guys on site for about 5 hours trying to identify the problem. (Not that they actually did much more than an hours work tops). In the end they concluded that we have a small leak between the main supply and our outside meter box. They think the wacker or digger driving over and compacting the soil may have damaged it.
Onto the bad bit. Firstly they want to Bill me for this (and it's likely to be over £1k already). They also want to come back tomorrow and start digging up some of the driveway to see if they can prove it was the driveway guys who caused the damage. This is on double time as its Sunday and I also have the driveway guys who are hoping to be laying the paving blocks tomorrow.
So does anyone know where I stand with this? Surely when paying for a new pipe to be installed and explaining about the drive it would be expected that cars etc would be driving over it. I'm not sure what to do and certainly can't afford a couple of thousand £. The driveway company have public liability but am worries they won't pay out and I will have to foot the bill.
Thanks