Siders jacked up my electrical hookup

[cbrsurfr]

Trying to get my rental ready to sell. Decided to have the siding/soffit/fascia/gutters done to increase curb appeal and eliminate issues (leaky gutters, garage leak, etc.). Went to check on the progress Friday as I live 30 miles away. Did a walk around and couldn't believe what they did to the electrical.

My guess is they removed all anchors and let it hang/drop solely on the overhead wires and the bend going into the basement.

I immediately brought it to the attention of the 2 remaining workers who told me the utility co was responsible for fixing. I told them I doubted that as I had to replace the meter socket on my flip property last year. Reached out to utility co and they confirmed they are only responsible for getting the wire from the pole to the overhead mast.

Reached out to my electrician who I'm sure will recommend replacing the mast down to the main panel. My costs last year were $540 for similar work on the flip house.

I think the siding company should pay for half if not all of it. Everything is bent/stressed and probably a fire hazard.

Am I being unreasonable? They still have to do the gutters so I don't want to piss them off yet and have a job half finished.

Old Before (from aways away since who takes pics of their meter box):
http://imgur.com/OHdCNjE

After:
http://imgur.com/RV8l5nU
http://imgur.com/j2g9cMn
http://imgur.com/LscR9Wy

 

[stormkroe]

They absolutely should pay for 100% of the cost, the mast is the responsibility of the homeowner, not the utility company.

 

[master_shake_]

did the siders remove the screws from inside the panel?

that is a big no no.

 

[Humpy]

What was the plan for having work done around the meter?

Surely this was discussed beforehand.

 

[mxnerd]

This is absolutely the worst job done by a contractor.

Even a layman can do better.

 

[natto fire]

did the siders remove the screws from inside the panel?

that is a big no no.

Knowing siding hacks, they just took a pry bar, sawzall and cut the fasteners. The other option is that the electrician did a poor job and used weak fasteners, and/or attached to the sheathing instead of getting to a stud or using toggles.

OP: I hope you used a reputable siding contractor, and not some fly by night operation off of Craigslist. The former will try to save face and work with you and an electrician to protect their image. The latter will just look for the next sucker trying to save a buck and be stuck with the sub-par work they paid for.

They absolutely should be on the hook 100% to fix the damage. If they did not know how to work around the mechanical systems, it should have been brought up that you would need to have a mechanical contractor remove the items and replace them after their cosmetic work was done. What they did was irresponsible and completely unprofessional.

Best of luck resolving this.

 

[Billb2]

What's wrong with You break it, you fix it.?
Works great if the work is ahead of whatever payment you've made.

 

[TechBoyJK]

Working around electrical service is something that both needs to be planned for and very likely permitted by the city/county.

Was there a permit to move/disturb the electrical service? No? You could probably be fined.

How do deal with the electrical service should have been thought through ahead of time, imho.

I doubt they'll pay. I'd write this off as a lesson learned and realize that next time, make sure you dot your I's and cross your T's when it comes to messing with anything electrical.. Especially the main service.

 

[cbrsurfr]

Reputable company I've used before (did a great job on my dad's house, did my garage gutters), however I believe they subcontracted out the siding portion this time. They've been in business 30+ years.

There was no permit to touch electrical because they were not supposed to touch the electrical. They were supposed to j channel around the meter box. The old siding was previously cut around the meter, not placed behind it.

 

[TechBoyJK]

I'd start with that.

Electrical service was tampered with when there was no permit for it. The service was not authorized to be tampered with. And not only was this work not legal, it wasn't approved in the first place.

To make matters worse the electrical service was left in a questionable state that would never pass an inspection.

You could possibly get the county involved, no? Leveraging the idea you could report that there was work done to your property that you did not authorize and the county didn't permit. And the entire reason the county has these codes and mechanisms is to prevent unqualified labor from tampering with public utilities in ways that could cause harm to the public.

 

[edro]

Hell yes I would complain and make them fix it... especially since it was specifically talked about before (about the j-channel, etc).
Should be no problem since the company sub contracted the work out and it is obvious they chose a bad subcontractor (their fault).