Waterford city council emergency maintenance

snuggles09

Has anyone an emergency number for them?

I've no running water since 11am this morning. I rang 4 times and each time was told someone would call me back but no one did. The last time I rang was 3.30pm this afternoon and was told it was "probably frozen pipes" though my neighbours all have perfect running water so I dont' know if that's the problem.

They are now closed until Januray and I have 3 children and no water bar the bit thats left in the tank..

Who should I call?

seanybiker

Did ya not think of ringing a plumber. Get him to check everything. Probably expensive though.

snuggles09

seanybiker wrote: »

Did ya not think of ringing a plumber. Get him to check everything. Probably expensive though.

no didnt ring a plumber because the maintenenace dept in the corporation kept telling me one of their maintenance men would ring me..they told me this 3 times and the last time i rang at 3.30 she said the same and mentioned frozen pipes but no call and not likely now at this hour and tomorrow xmas eve..havent the money for an expensive plumber to be honest..things are tight enough this christmas

Trotter

snuggles09 wrote: »

no didnt ring a plumber because the maintenenace dept in the corporation kept telling me one of their maintenance men would ring me..they told me this 3 times and the last time i rang at 3.30 she said the same and mentioned frozen pipes but no call and not likely now at this hour and tomorrow xmas eve..havent the money for an expensive plumber to be honest..things are tight enough this christmas

Might be a case of ringing your local councillors.. this kind of thing shouldnt be happening.

snuggles09

Trotter wrote: »

Might be a case of ringing your local councillors.. this kind of thing shouldnt be happening.

I rang Davey Daniels and he said to ring fire brigade..they said they dont deal with these things anymore its all solely the council though Davey was right in telling me to call as they used to deal with it before.

Still no water..have my father coming out in the morning to see can he do anything..i've bought in bottled water to make bottles for the night

Trotter

I'd ring him back and say that didnt work.

When the strikes were on in November, the council did have an emergency number listed on their site. It was 051-875555, but Im not sure if thats still in operation. Definitely keep at the councillors though.

baronflyguy

I've seen the city council lads out working all day and even tonight (Christmas eve) along the Dunmore road. I would guess they are fixing the water issue. Eventhough the city council offices are closed I would say there engineers are on the case.

Any update on your water problem snuggles09?

Deisekickboxing

6x 1,5 l water 3€ in tesco get over it ........obviously frozen pipes!

baronflyguy

Deisekickboxing wrote: »

6x 1,5 l water 3€ in tesco get over it ........obviously frozen pipes!

Flushing the toilet with still water is a bit posh

Deisekickboxing

baronflyguy wrote: »

Flushing the toilet with still water is a bit posh

they do sparkling for same price,,...................;)

snuggles09

Deisekickboxing wrote: »

6x 1,5 l water 3€ in tesco get over it ........obviously frozen pipes!

you always such a smart ****er i was only asking for help..i don't need to "get over it" thanks when i've 5 people on the house, 3 of them children one of whom is a baby and no heat or water over christmas so stop being a smart arse when there's no need:rolleyes:

and to answer the question no i still have no water, no water now in the tank and no heat Baronflyguy:)

seanybiker

thats some pain in the sack. Shout at them when you do get through.

AdMMM

There must have been a breakdown in communication somewhere because the emergency line for Waterford City Council Maintenance was meant to be set up to automatically redirect to the Fire Department. Councillor Daniels was correct in getting you to contact them.

snuggles09

AdMMM wrote: »

There must have been a breakdown in communication somewhere because the emergency line for Waterford City Council Maintenance was meant to be set up to automatically redirect to the Fire Department. Councillor Daniels was correct in getting you to contact them.

I rang 999 in the end to get through to the fire department, they contacted the council on my behalf and the council told them about a burst pipe (this was on xmas eve) and they said it would be fixed by 4pm but that was on the Dunmore Road and wasn't affecting me at all..I told the fire dept this but they insisted that was the problem..

Today I got a phone call from Noel Walsh the city council manager and his words to me were "no water since Wednesday, oh my God you're far too quiet" so I explained that there was no emergency number available either on their website etc so how was I supposed to find it, I'm not psychic..he had someone from the council out within and hour and he said that the pipes were most definitley frozen and there's nothing they can do bar pour roasting hot water along the path where the pipe is and wait for it to thaw out

Looks like I'll have to eat my words and actually "get over it"

AdMMM

I'm very sorry to hear you've been without water all this time but I'm glad that they managed to get someone out to you so quick even if it did take a long time to get in actual contact. I hope that they take measures next year to make everyone aware of the emergency procedure because it's never nice to hear stories like this from people who slipped through the net.

I hope you had a very Happy Christmas and I wish you plenty of water for the New Year.

baronflyguy

snuggles09 wrote: »

I rang 999 in the end to get through to the fire department, they contacted the council on my behalf and the council told them about a burst pipe (this was on xmas eve) and they said it would be fixed by 4pm but that was on the Dunmore Road and wasn't affecting me at all..I told the fire dept this but they insisted that was the problem..

Today I got a phone call from Noel Walsh the city council manager and his words to me were "no water since Wednesday, oh my God you're far too quiet" so I explained that there was no emergency number available either on their website etc so how was I supposed to find it, I'm not psychic..he had someone from the council out within and hour and he said that the pipes were most definitely frozen and there's nothing they can do bar pour roasting hot water along the path where the pipe is and wait for it to thaw out

Looks like I'll have to eat my words and actually "get over it"

Glad to hear someone from the City Council got on the case and helped you when he got wind of it. Very poor communications and procedures in place if you ask me if it took till St Stephens day before message got to the proper person to help you.

scath_a_cheile

Christmas night will hopefully have been a turning point for Waterford residents. It rained at midnight and froze immediately. That's how skating rinks are constructed. Waterford was a skating rink that night and next day with multiple skids and crashes around the city. Where was the Council? Where were our Councillors on St. Stephen's Day? Where was the emergency procedure? People are rightly terrified of icy streets. But there was no grit available and no emergency number. If the Council won't grit the estates and side streets they should at least supply grit to residents groups. Muddling through is not an option any longer.

ex_infantry man

someone has to die before anything is done in this country!!!!!!

snuggles09

I rang Noel Walsh again this morning and he got onto the maintenance dept..before that I rang 875555 and was on hold for 26 mins with no one answering the phones.

At 12.45pm I got a call from the maintenance dept from two maintenance men and I have to say they were fantastic. They had no idea about my situation even though this has been giong on since last Wednesday but the news only got to them today via Noel Walsh

They were at my house at 1 o'clock and the problem is the stop cock is only 1 foot under the ground and all my neighbours are much deeper.
They dug down in the garden but they can't get through the concrete so it'll have to be dug and pipes re laid again.

They offered to put us up in a B&B but we refused but it was a nice gesture and they went away and brought back 3 big drums of water for us.

On Wednesday the plumber will be back, go up to attic and feed through their water supply to us so our tank will fill and we will have water (not drinkable) in every tap bar the cold one in the kitchen while they are re laying the pipes for us.

The plumber also went and turned off the connection to the boiler so that we can now turn back on the heating again. Only have to get through tomorrow with no water and hopefully wednesday we'll be back to some sort of normality.

I don't think the maintenance men today were too happy that it had taken this long to be sorted but I didnt give them a hard time as it's not their fault, there was miscommunication somewhere along the line. Fingers crossed it'll be sorted out for the new year.

AdMMM

It's good that you're on the right path anyway. I've forwarded the details from this thread onto a Councillor and given that Davy Daniels has also been made aware of it, they'll try get some answers from the Council so that hopefully you (or anyone else for that matter) will never have to experience anything like this again.