Engineer’s just broken my light

[Stmoritz]

I’ve got an engineer here fixing the phone line. He’s walked into the ceiling light fitting (kind of a wired-in chandelier thing with three bulbs) and now it’s not working. (He didn’t hurt himself by the way, I did check first!) I’ve asked him what we do about it and he’s not sure. Surely I shouldn’t have to pay for the repair? Can someone advise? Also, where he’s been drilling through the wall to bring a cable through, the (newly decorated wall) paint is damaged - who is liable for fixing this? He’s pretty much wrecking the place, and only partially for necessary reasons!

I'd call the company, take photos of the damage and ask for it to be put right/reimbursement of costs you incur putting it right.

Engineers occasionally fuck up and break things, I work for a company that arranges TV repair agents and they occasionally break things. We will either put it right if we can or reimburse reasonable costs incurred in fixing it. I assume most companies to have insurance to cover them for similar.

I’d accept the paint damage as unavoidable if your wall is being drilled! The light I’d expect he or his employer to have insurance to cover.

The wall is one of those things. He can't do his job otherwise.

The light - it was an accident. When you say broke it, what do you mean and how low is it to hit your head on?

Just read that the light fitting is from the ceiling. I was assuming the wall. How low is it that he could walk into it???

Yeah I assumed the wall is my problem as it’s unavoidable.

The light’s not that low, you’d have to be over 6’ to hit your head on it, which obviously he is. But it’s also very obviously visible and right in the middle of the room. I mean he broke it as he walked into it and it went off and won’t come on again.

Thanks, I’ll call the company and see what they say

Are you sure that it's not just a bulb come loose or something in the light? It's a bit bizarre otherwise that bumping a fitting would be enough to break it

Yeah I’ve checked the bulbs, I’m not doing anything else as I don’t know what I’m doing and it’s probably not sensible for someone clueless to go prodding it about too much, it’s wired in. I’ll get an electrician to look at it.

I think that's a good plan, OP - I didn't mean to sound like I was suggesting you should conduct further investigations yourself! Hopefully it's just a loose connection somewhere in the wiring - we got rid of a low-hanging chandelier for this reason...