Cadent replacing gas pipes. Anyone experienced this?

[JenniferBooth]

This is going to be happening on a housing estate where a friend of mine lives. I was round there when a letter about it was delivered. They are asking for quite a lot including access to homes from 7.30 am on wards and then want to be in and out all day amongst a lot of other things like digging up drives. Has anyone had any experience of this The experiences of it ive read on their trustpilot dont fill me with confidence.

Yes they have been working on new gas pipes in our area since last August. We had a letter prior to say what was happening and that they would need access to our property twice to connect us to the new pipes at some point; we then had a card through the letterbox to say they needed access on X date/time (gave a few days notice), but I wasn’t going to be on so I rang the number and arranged a new time later that day- it was no problem at all for them.

We had this done last year. The gas pipes date back to the 1930s when the houses were built and were in a dangerous, crumbling condition. It isn't something you would want to put them off doing, if you've any sense.

We had forewarning when the works were going to be done (and could see them moving gradually down our road, so we could guess fairly accurately when it would be our turn) so we knew to park elsewhere and not on our drive for a few days.

The pipes weren't consistent in their pathways so some driveways had to be dug up, some holes cut into the concrete directly next to the house, some pavement slabs lifted. We didn't have any problem with their making good afterwards and the workers were all polite and friendly whenever we spoke to them. Sounds like we got a good crew!

We had a lovely cadent crew too , so polite and were sympathetic at my whining because I had to clear out the cupboard under the stairs for them to get to the gas meter. ( which meant a trip to the local tip afterwards with all the old bits and pieces we found hidden away to throw out ) first world problems!
We did buy them all some doughnuts which went down well I think.

All the houses in our road had their gas pipes replaced last summer. The houses are all and exactly the same. On the whole, it went quite well with a few exceptions. One of the neighbours had no gas afterwards as when they pushed the new pipe through the existing one, it picked up a load of rubble. All the meters for the houses were in the attached garages and a couple of people had weird units placed outside. However, when they complained, the units were put into the garages.
A friend of mine, on a different road, had to have the crazy paving on her drive replaced as they couldn’t push the new pipe through the old one but they were quite happy with the replacement paving.

The supplier is responsible up to the meter which is in the case of gas is on the customers property unlike a water meter which is often in the public highway.

Often there often is no need to dig a trench on the customers property, by digging a pit at each end they can "mole" the new pipe under the garden/driveway.
My parents had an old cast iron gas pipe serving their house, this was replaced by a new plastic pipe installed this way.
We had a new water pipe installed in our house the same way. From the path all the way through to the rear of the house the pipe was installed with a minimum of disruption and they were finished by lunchtime.

@Cotswoldbee sensible! We’ve only ever had gas bottles (very much our problem to deal with!) or brand new gas installation on mains, so never experienced mass replacement. Plus we are currently house straight up to the pavement for water and gas, so it would be non disruptive if it happened to us. All our land is to the rear, and we only have overhead electric cable to deal with.

Though if gas is running out then why are they replacing the pipe network?

Justified to ask and be concerned. From the comments on this thread and my parents' experience, they are much better (or much less bad) than almost any of the other utilities. Try dealing with BT/Openreach or UKPN as examples.

Yes. Luckily ours didn't need doing but they dumped a container at the end of our road and were out there shouting at each other (and swearing some days) from 7.30 every morning. I had a go at someone one w/e who left their massive flatbed lorry idling for 50 mins outside for no reason other than they just didn't bother to turn it off 😡. They did offer me a hamper when I complained lol.

@BettyBakesCakes I'm now a bit miffed that Northern Gas Networks didn't offer me a hamper after discussing cocaine and anal sex under my living room window!

We had this and it wasn't really a massive issue. They did say at the beginning that they would come and tells which day they needed access and it was just a 5 minute thing as far as I remember. They needed access to the gas meter which is on the back wall but no access from the street.

The only issue was they didn't tell me what day in advance. I do work from home mostly so wasn't an issue but I was a bit annoyed that I wasn't told before so knew to expect them.

We had this not that bad the only problem really was access with us all working

they thread new plans pipe through old metal one
dug a very small hole outside

worth noting this is a replacement pipe program uk wide
all came off the back of an explosion that killed an entire family due to metal gas pipe that had naturally reach the end of it’s life

@LlynTegid I could paper the walls with the excuses UKPN have given me during power cuts. When they pedestrianized our town centre they lay nice new paving................then UKPN have had to dig it up at least three times. Looks awful now.

Very recent experience of this, bit of a pain - especially as we had the the temporary traffic lights right outside our drive. Communication from the outset was very poor. I work from home most days and we have a ring doorbell so know that no one knocked on to discuss or inform us as they claimed, despite them assuring me they had.
Took far longer than they expected due to the initial crew being a bit rubbish and taken off the job.
Coincided with us having planned ground works involving a new drive. Despite the first crew advising no disruption to our land, I found out from a neighbour they would likely be digging up the drive. It was all ready for new tarmac to be laid the following day when I found this out be accident. It would have been a nightmare had it all been done.
After becoming best mates with their online bot, I got a house visit from a manager who told us to delay all the work until they had finished as they would not reinstate to our standard- they only patch the tarmac.
Ended up with an external ugly metre box - only option to avoid further delay for our grounds work team.
The final crew were very helpful but the communication from the top is poor.
It would have been a pain to manage if I wasn’t working from home- but still lots of interruptions when I was in meetings.
Unhelpful that gas is reconnected by a separate team who have to come in and check the boiler. A couple of times this was late, latest being 10.50 pm on a Friday night. I was communicating this with elderly neighbours who didn’t have access to the online chat. The emergency number we had would not believe we still hadn’t been connected. All pre Christmas so pretty cold too.

Thanks for taking the time to write all that @Patiencerunningthin Its the lack of communication that could cause problems

We like you got the notification that they were going to do the work

turned up months later knocked on all doors first thing to see who would be in told them we were at work they asked when we could let them in came back after we finished work 2 days later as per arranged

there seem a lot of drama in some of the replies on this thread

They're doing the main on the road near me at the minute
So far there's been 10 car accidents in a week - not their fault but people are looking left, seeing the road closed sign and ignoring the fact it's one way with cars driving towards them and just going anyway
And they've cut through the electric and the water main
6 months to go...

Well there will be some things that havent been considered like he wont be able to move his car from where it is because of his limited mobility And one of the many things he uses said car for is trips to the shops to top up his pre payment meters one of which is gas. Cadent arent going to be able to do anything should they need access to his boiler if he cant get out to top it up. And he wont be the only one. This is a huge social housing estate we are talking about here. So logistics of this have to be considered,

My elderly aunt and uncle. It's been an utter nightmare. Things in the house have been broken due to Cadent smashing up the drive outside the house. A massive pipe has been pushed through a wall and my 86 yo uncle was given no time to decide where it should go. Thank goodness my cousin is close by and able to push back against Cadent's bullying. Aunt is 8 weeks post hip replacement. The temperature in the house was 8 degrees C after they had no heating overnight. Cadent have given zero shits

@Malbecfan thats fucking awful.. I wonder why it varies so much. I know a lot of the work is sub contracted out. Two that they use are Terra Firma and Balfour Beatty

@JenniferBooth apparently it was Cadent themselves.

To make matters worse, my uncle was a plumber and gas engineer until CORGI registration came in for his entire working life. He is devastated by the way Cadent has treated him. Luckily my cousin is a bloody tenactious person and won't let her mum & dad be treated like this. However, what about those poor people who don't have a "cousin" to stand up for them?

@Malbecfan good God. i know that going by the experiences ive read on here and trustpilot that some have been good and some bad whether home owner or renting it doesnt seem to make a difference but a part of me IS worried that he (and that area) will be treated worse because its social housing.

There are a few reviews on trustpilot though as well as what you have just posted that shows they think the elderly are a pushover

We had this and it was fine. Someone came to the door to speak to us in advance about access and issues and who to speak to. Saw her pottering around various days so would have grabbed and spoke to her if there were issues but there weren't. The workers were more than happy to speak to us about their work, very limited access requested and they were helpful with a meter issue we were having which ended up with the meter being moved.

I'm glad that some people had a good experience. On my family's estate, roads have been blocked by Cadent vehicles for days on end, meaning emergency vehicles cannot get access. My aunt and uncle were railroaded into something and pipes are now shoved through holes in the wall in utterly inappropriate places. I have seen the photos my cousin showed me. I'm just relieved that I live in an area that British Gas/Cadent can't be arsed to even put pipes into.

@JenniferBooth

yes last year Cadent replaced pipes across my estate. They should be setting up a ‘stall’ for want of a better word where you can go and ask questions, they showed us maps and explained how it would work

someone also came round about a week before they started and door knocked everywhere to see if there where any questions, and to see if there were any vulnerable people

some of the houses had to have new metres fitted, some didn’t, I didn’t

they did dig my garden up slightly to get to a pipe but put everything back, including washing down a very muddy step

on the day you are allowed to turn your own boiler off, but they have to check. Then once everything is complete they get a gas safe engineer to come and check everything and turn you all back on. We were off at 7.30pm but on again at about 6pm

depending on what pipes there are already your friend may get switched off twice, I was but again no real hassle. Whilst the letter says someone has to be in next door we’re away so I had a key and let them in which they had no issue with

They also did other local estates.

Barriers were set up where they were working, and they did one side of the road at a time and left gaps for people to get on and off drives. There was the occasionally time we had to wait to get past as lorries took away stuff or dumped new earth for in filling

They were very good, kept us informed, were happy people asked questions whilst they were working, and as I say had a stall thing before it all started along with door knocking about a week before