Satellite TV still can't be viewed nearly three weeks after scaffolding was taken down - *** Resolved***

[George563]

Hello

I am a resident of a communal block of flats owned by a Housing Association and since Tuesday 14th May 2024 Matthews and Tannert had put up scaffolding for a job on the roof last week, which was up for the best part of nine days. They had removed the scaffolding on Thursday 23rd May 2024 but my Sky box is still not working because of the satellite dish outside, and I was wondering whether the scaffolders had touched the dish while it was there and as a result had probably knocked the dish and probably made the dish go out of signal or whatever. I needed someone to check this out as well as to see my Sky box to see what could be the problem, and hopefully sort this out. I have had my Sky Digibox for many years and I have got recordings saved on them that I have had a long time - it would break my heart if I had lost them forever.      

I contacted Sky but I almost made the mistake of accepting an offer where I would have to pay £31.50 and wait a whole month without television in my front room for it. I am in debt at the moment and I don't want all this on top of everything else - thankfully I have since cancelled it two weeks later when I told the person on the phone that it is the dish which is at fault as well as the fact that I live in a communal Housing Association property, and so that is one of very few weights off my mind.

I emailed the Housing Association's Repairs department and they said that they will contact an electrical company to come out and see to the dish outside.

I received a telephone call on Friday 24th May from the man to say that he will arrive on Wednesday 29th May 2024 to do the job. He arrived at around 9.40 am on Wednesday as promised; he went into my flat and had a look at the Sky box and saw the blue screen on my front room TV set, indicating no signal. He also looked outside as to where the dish was. 

The main problem was that the ladders that he had with him were not enough to reach the dish outside as the dish was towards the top of the building - obviously the Health and Safety aspect of the job didn't allow him to do this.

He then mentioned that whether he could do the job as a result of getting onto the roof and doing it like that as the dish is closer to the top. He said that he needed the key to enter the loft part of the building in order to reach this, and he needed to contact the Housing Officer at the Housing Association who had key to this, but lo and behold, he came on the Wednesday to do the job, and guess what? Wednesday was the Housing Officer's day off and so therefore he was unable to contact him for the key so that he could do the job! I just couldn't believe it myself.

I am personally annoyed because this has not been sorted, and the man who came to do this is also annoyed because he came all the way to Nottingham from Peterborough, and he said to me that he won't get paid if he cannot do the job, so you see, we are both angry about this for different reasons. We are both in the same boat with regards to frustration, and we both want to see a conclusion to this, once and for all. Sometimes I wish that I didn't live in a flat which is in a communal building and I am thinking of getting a transfer to a one bedroom flat that isn't in that sort of place.

I pay around £85 a month in a Direct Debit to Sky to receive their TV services which I cannot use at the moment, and I don't have much money in my bank account as it is due to one thing and another. I also pay nearly £14 a month to TV Licensing so that I can legally watch TV in my front room. I pay for Sky hence the fact that I want the Sky service in my front room and not Freeview.

Also, as the General Election is coming up in five weeks' time, I want the satellite TV to be working properly so that I can catch up with what is on the news channels, and I feel rather "cut off" from that at the moment, and I want it working in time for Thursday 4th July 2024 for obvious reasons . I have Freeview in my bedroom, but that is not the point  - I don't want to be limited to my bedroom every time I want to watch TV. I have tried putting the Freeview in the front room but it doesn't seem compatible for the same uses that I usually have Sky for. 

Sunday 9th June 2024 is Day 27 of the satellite TV not working in my flat, and I feel that something needs to be done about this. You can take this message as a complaint if you like, but nevertheless, I want this message to be acknowledged and also something to be done about what has happened. I have enough on my plate with regards to health problems and depression without things like this making things worse. I would appreciate it if something was done. 

I don't like naming and shaming but it is Matthews and Tannert's fault that I am in this situation in the first place, and sometimes I wish that I could sue them. In a nutshell, I have had more than enough after being without TV in the my front room for nearly four weeks. Also, at a time like this, I am missing so much of interest on TV what with the General Election coming up in just a few weeks.

[dx100uk]

£85PCM to sky, what!!

why are you paying so much, what did you watch on sky thats not on freeview?

 

[BazzaS]

Do you have broadband at home?

A permanent move to e.g. Sky Glass may not fit with your desire to keep your digibox,, but can you move the items you most want off the digibox? If so, Sky Glass might suit you. You might ask Sky to loan you a “puck” and provide access as an interim measure.

another option might be using Sky Go, at least short term, to give you access to some of the Sky programming while awaiting the dish being sorted.

Edited June 8 by BazzaS

[George563]

I don't know. There are channels that are on Sky that are not on Freeview.

I would just like to say that thanks to the Cost of Living crisis, I am paying more than I am receiving and it has almost drained my bank account.

I feel very bitter and angry at the situation that I am at the moment.

bazz

I don't think I can move them.

Besides I have Sky for 19 years and I am so used to it.

I want the satellite dish to be working again so that I am record the General Election coverage next week.

[stu007]

Hi

As this is a Housing Association Property (Flat in a building) cam you clarify the following:

1. Is the Satellite Dish a Communal Dish for the entire Building? or

If it is as above then so far you have don the correct thing by contacting the housing association to get this repaired but where they have failed is the person you contacted should have been aware that the satellite repair contractor would have needed access to the roof therefore requiring the key for access to said roof.

You also need to complain to the Housing Association about their actions to date and your lose of service which has cost you and how they are going to compensate you for this loss of service which you are paying Sky for but have no access to due to the fault with the Satellite Dish likely caused by the contractors carrying out work on the building/roof when the issue happened.

2. Is the Satellite Dish your own Dish installed by Sky?

If the Satellite Dish is your own Dish sadly this would be your own responsibility to put right even if it was the Housing Associations Contractors that caused the issue as no items should be afixed to the external of the building which is their property and not the tenants and any tenant would require their specific permission to attach a Satellite Dish to the external of the building.

 

 

[George563]

Answers to Stu's questions:

1) I live in a communal building and so therefore I originally assumed that it was a communal dish for the entire building, although I have not heard anyone else complain about this. I am probably the only person who lives here that actually has Sky and so the only person who uses the dish in question. There is another dish on the same side of the building which is a bit below that one towards the corner of the building, but I know which dish serves my flat as it was directlyt above where the scaffolding originally was. When I saw the blue screen on my front room TV I immediately telephoned my local Housing Association, although since then it has mostly been email contact in the past six weeks.

2) I don't personally own the dish myself as it was already there when I moved in here back in 2014 - as a matter of fact, I didn't even know which dish served my flat when it came to receiving satellite TV channels on my Digibox. I believe by implication that Sky must have installed it instead. At my old place which was a council house before I moved here, I had a Sky dish installed which was my own (a bloke came one Sunday morning back in 2005 to do the honours) , although I left it behind when I moved so that the next people could use satellite TV,  and also due to the fact that there would already be a satellite dish at the back of the building at my new place as well as a satellite socket on the wall at the back of the TV and so therefore I didn't need to take my old one with me. My Digibox and my account came with me when I moved to my present address.

I would also like to say that the workman who was working on putting the satellite dish right will be returning on tomorrow - Wednesday 26th June 2024 to finally correct the dish via a cherry picker and so for the first time in six weeks, I will have proper TV again in my front room! I will post again once more on this thread to let you know that it has officially been done. Meanwhile, I have everything crossed for tomorrow that the satellite TV will be back on again, because he had been let down twice already. Wednesday is Day 44 of this charade, and hopefully the final day of it as well.           

 

[George563]

I am pleased to announce that as of 8.09 am BST this (Wednesday 26th June 2024) morning the dish has now been fixed after six weeks of waiting and that I can now enjoy satellite TV in my front room again.

After a total of 44 days I am now glad that I can put this behind me and now focus on other important things in life. 

Thank you everyone who had responded to this thread.

 

 

[honeybee13]

That's great for you and thank you for letting us know. I'll amend your thread title.

HB

[stu007]

Hi

That's great news that it has well IMO been resolved to a certain extent that the Satellite Dish has be aligned properly and you have your Sky Services that you are paying for back.

Does that make up for your Loss of Service IMO NO you should be entitled to claim compensation from the Housing Association for this Loss due to the fact:

1. It was the Contractor Employed by the Housing Association working on the Building/Roof that caused the Satellite Dish to be put out of alignment

2. The first Contractor sent by the Housing Association could not access the Satellite Dish as it was on the Roof (which the Housing Association would have been aware of) and needed the keys to access the roof which the Housing Association failed to provide due to there Housing Officer being off work but couldn't be bothered to send another staff member to do this.

3. The Second Contractor was able to access the roof as keys provided by Housing Association and re align the Satellite Dish.

The Housing Association are liable for this Loss of Service as it was there Contractor employed by them that initially caused the Satellite outage them further compounded by the next Contractor employed by them not able to fix the dish as they couldn't get access to the roof due to the Housing Association not giving keys then you had to wait for the next Contractor again employed by the Housing Association who was able to access the roof and fix the Satellite Dish.

The Satellite Outage length of time to fix was caused by the Housing Association and you must also remember it is YOUR RENT PAYMENTS that are paying for these services of those contractors so just think how much it has cost the Tenants for those 2 Contractors to fix that Satellite dish when it should have been done the first time and who caused the issue the buck stops with the Housing Association.

[George563]

Stu

I am going to email my Housing Association and I will copy and paste your latest response and see what they will say.

Incidentally, I was thinking about taking legal action against the company which was responsible for disturbing the dish in the first place.

Edited June 28 by George563

[George563]

The Housing Association have responded to my email and they will send me a compensation form in the post which I should receive some time next week. I will try and update on this thead if I have any further news.

[dx100uk]

go for each of your monthly payments made to Sky for the period your system was not working at least.

dx

 

[George563]

Yes, I will do that.

[George563]

On 08/06/2024 at 22:41, dx100uk said:

£85PCM to sky, what!!

why are you paying so much, what did you watch on sky thats not on freeview?

 

That is what I call the Cost of Living crisis in a nutshell - I am glad you have noticed how high it has been.

I am doing my homework in order to see how I can save money, and I hope that whoever wins the General Election that GB Energy or whatever it is called it set up to keep bills down again. If Sir Keir makes it to the steps of Downing Street on Friday afternoon, then I hope that this is optimism for people like myself to get bills down once and for all in order to how they used to be and to get back to normal.  

 

[dx100uk]

you believe funny theories.

the only reason you are paying £85PCM to sky is your ignorance...nothing to do with any gov't.

you can do exactly what you are wanting for free and a smart enabled freeview TV  which 99.9% of TV's have been for +20yrs. 

[George563]

If I can save money, I will try and do so.

[George563]

I feel that this thread has run its course, and so I won't post on here again.

 

[dx100uk]

we're here 

 

[stu007]

Your thread hasn't run it's course as the compensation from the Housing Association is still unresolved until they agree to it and payment is in your bank account.

[George563]

Received compensation form on Thursday, filled it in and returned it.