Water meter installation tomorrow

dodzy

Just got notification that this will take place tomorrow (huntstown). Anyone know what exactly is involved for the process ? Just interested in how they work the installation. I know that the billing commencement is not till 2014, just curious as to what the fit entails.

Toto Wolfcastle

There's a thread in the Kildare forum here about what people there experienced during the installation.

Arciphel

We had ours done last week. Basically you will be unable to drive in/out of your driveway for about 3 days. Even though the leaflet says 2 hours for the job :cool: They will mark the location of the water main into your house and then early in the morning you will be greeted by the sounds of a consaw cutting the concrete and then a drill opening up access to the main. Once the meter goes in they fill it with tarmac temporarily for a day and then when they have a load of houses done they come back and fill the hole with concrete and finish it off.

KGLady

They just got started outside my house today and were erecting barriers shortly after 8am. I was going out on the school run at 8.30am and they moved away the barriers for me to get the car out and were very accomodating. I stayed out of the house for the morning, came back at 2pm and parked up the street, as the driveway was blocked but they made sure there was pedestrian access into each driveway. One of the lads walked with me past their diggers the barriered holes etc as I had a baby and two small kids, and he chatted to the kids while making sure they were alright navigating the area. Right now they are just finished clearing away the barriers again (4.30pm) and I'm going to pop out and bring the car into the driveway. We have not accessed water over the course of the day but put the heating on when it got very cold.

Whatever about the issues I have with the principles of metering, the lads doing the work seem to be decent and accomodating.

Kev.

KGLady wrote: »

They just got started outside my house today and were erecting barriers shortly after 8am. I was going out on the school run at 8.30am and they moved away the barriers for me to get the car out and were very accomodating. I stayed out of the house for the morning, came back at 2pm and parked up the street, as the driveway was blocked but they made sure there was pedestrian access into each driveway. One of the lads walked with me past their diggers the barriered holes etc as I had a baby and two small kids, and he chatted to the kids while making sure they were alright navigating the area. Right now they are just finished clearing away the barriers again (4.30pm) and I'm going to pop out and bring the car into the driveway. We have not accessed water over the course of the day but put the heating on when it got very cold.

Whatever about the issues I have with the principles of metering, the lads doing the work seem to be decent and accomodating.

Yep its fair enough ,The lads are only doing there jobs.Its not their fault..

Zaph

I'm sure the lads doing the work are sound, but the tosser driving the minibus who dropped them all off this morning is a different story. Who stops a vehicle diagonally across a road to let their passengers out rather than pulling into the side of the road? :mad:

gabsdot40

KGLady wrote: »

They just got started outside my house today and were erecting barriers shortly after 8am. I was going out on the school run at 8.30am and they moved away the barriers for me to get the car out and were very accomodating. I stayed out of the house for the morning, came back at 2pm and parked up the street, as the driveway was blocked but they made sure there was pedestrian access into each driveway. One of the lads walked with me past their diggers the barriered holes etc as I had a baby and two small kids, and he chatted to the kids while making sure they were alright navigating the area. Right now they are just finished clearing away the barriers again (4.30pm) and I'm going to pop out and bring the car into the driveway. We have not accessed water over the course of the day but put the heating on when it got very cold.

Our experience was similar. The water was off for about 30 mins during the day but on the whole it wasn't very disruptive.

To be honest i have a problem with this as Dublin 15 get sh!ttier water then other parts of dublin. Its costing me extra in Clothes and lime removal

RichardoKhan

Think most of us do. Regardless of location. Sad fact is that we are going to pay for something which we have already paid for (via past taxes etc). Its a TAX pure & simple, nothing to do with paying for future services or infrastructure. People need to wake up fast & resist..........

KGLady

I take issue with the whole notion of it. To me its like going to eat out, having to pay a cover charge on the door, then to have my food delivered to the table after 40% of it has fallen to the floor, and then when it arrives its not only going to ruin my clothes, but its also food that is medicated in advance with no choice on my part- and then being asked to pay a separate new bill for the food and be told its because the previous owners never bothered to invest in the food delivery process or run the business in a financially viable way.

Reality is so much water is lost due to poor infrastructure, its hard water that cause degradation of our appliances at best, skin issues at worst. We are given no choice in fluoridation and those who question it are treated to media spin ridicule and mocked, and because nobody bothered to invest in the water system before and the country is broke, we're getting a new tax for a substandard service.

How long until its privatised?

Rant aside, still can't complain about the lads contracted to fit the meters and as was said tis not their fault

nomesc

We had ours installed last month. Workers were really nice, they're just doing their jobs. Leaflet is a disgrace saying 2hrs when it is in fact 3 days your driveway is blocked.
I emailed David McGuinness on this and the fact they were there early morning until well after 6pm and back making a racket at 11pm. He did contact Irish Water straight away. Response he got was basically "we'll talk to the contractors, they are not supposed to work after a certain time" Fair palsy to him getting on to it straight away. He did say if it continued to get back on to him.
Be prepared for no vehicle access to your drive and lots of parking issues in your estate.

dodzy

dodzy wrote: »

Just got notification that this will take place tomorrow (huntstown). Anyone know what exactly is involved for the process ? Just interested in how they work the installation. I know that the billing commencement is not till 2014, just curious as to what the fit entails.

Kicked off on Thursday last, Nov 14th. Dug it out, fitted the meter and cover, and fúcked off. Nothing on Friday, obviously nothing the weekend and nothing today. Luckily I widened the drive several yrs back so no access issues for me, but others ain't so fortunate. And to top it off, the Panda lads obviously didn't feel like walking to the last 4 houses in the cul-de-sac to take away black bins this morning. Pain in the hole, it is.

Toto Wolfcastle

dodzy wrote: »

Kicked off on Thursday last, Nov 14th. Dug it out, fitted the meter and cover, and fúcked off. Nothing on Friday, obviously nothing the weekend and nothing today. Luckily I widened the drive several yrs back so no access issues for me, but others ain't so fortunate. And to top it off, the Panda lads obviously didn't feel like walking to the last 4 houses in the cul-de-sac to take away black bins this morning. Pain in the hole, it is.

It says on the leaflet we got with the start date on it that their days of operation are Monday to Saturday so I was expecting them to be working on Saturday too rather than fecking off for the weekend.

Morag

We didn't get a notice, the noise started at 8:05pm and they are still at it.

dodzy

dodzy wrote: »

Kicked off on Thursday last, Nov 14th. Dug it out, fitted the meter and cover, and fúcked off. Nothing on Friday, obviously nothing the weekend and nothing today. Luckily I widened the drive several yrs back so no access issues for me, but others ain't so fortunate. And to top it off, the Panda lads obviously didn't feel like walking to the last 4 houses in the cul-de-sac to take away black bins this morning. Pain in the hole, it is.

Day 5: Not a sign of them. Bleedin useless.

rolion

dodzy wrote: »

Kicked off on Thursday last, Nov 14th. Dug it out, fitted the meter and cover, and fúcked off. Nothing on Friday, obviously nothing the weekend and nothing today. Luckily I widened the drive several yrs back so no access issues for me, but others ain't so fortunate. And to top it off, the Panda lads obviously didn't feel like walking to the last 4 houses in the cul-de-sac to take away black bins this morning. Pain in the hole, it is.

Same related issues here...
Thanks Panda and I guess to the workers, they managed to get trough somehow...all work is done on one side of the road, with proper signage and to be honest I don't see how that will take few hours when they are here for the past few days. I hope their Project Manager still gets a wages ...

But what really really pissed me off is that after 6pm,when work is mostly closed and workers gone home...the level of disrespect by the people living at those addresses on how they park their cars ,all over the road, left, right so is like a race between cars...sometime, I need to stop and open the window to see if I can get trough !

I wonder if an ambulance or worse, a fire engine can make their way trough ! If I will drive that fire engine will just go trough all the fcukers cars parked so badly, like in Die Hard 4...

dodzy

dodzy wrote: »

Day 5: Not a sign of them. Bleedin useless.

Jumped the gun, I did. Got home at 6 and the concrete was done. Barriers hopefully gone tomorrow.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Is there any way to know where they'll be digging before they come? Like is there a standard location of the mains, or is it different in every estate?

Morag

There is a valve for the mains outside most houses, it's the little horse shoe shaped shore with UISCE written on it.

Larbre34

Not everyone has to worry about big disruption, depending on the age of the house. In about the last 10 years new builds have had to have a chamber installed at the water connection to accommodate meter installation in the future. The future is now. If you have one of these all the installers have to do is remove the exposed section of insulated pipe, pop the meter between the existing valves and connect it up, no excavation needed.