SubscribeNorth Coventry Township Station 64 Fire Engine - Ready to Respond to Comcast Mishaps Anytime
“I called Comcast because I wanted the kitchen TV hooked up to cable,” she said, describing how the digital TV converter box hadn’t worked as planned. “They said no problem, we can do it, no extra charge.” Tyson was already a Comcast subscriber before the incident Monday.
“They drilled right into the electrical box,” Tyson said in disbelief, looking over at the side of her home where a long black burn mark extended up to the roof from a burnt electrical box and meter.
Verizon must be enjoying the irony. Just a few days ago, we shared with you the ad that Comcast was running in Pennsylvania showing reckless Verizon FiOS installers tearing up yards and engaging in what can only be described as ‘dangerous antics’ by the telephone company’s installers. Verizon wants those ads pulled for being out of bounds.
After The Mercury published an article detailing one 83 year old North Coventry woman’s plight (her house is now uninhabitable), Comcast may have to yank the ad just to save face.
Tyson, who was in her house while the cable man worked outside, said she heard “two loud blasts — ‘Boom, Boom’ — then I came out of the house to see what was going on.”
“It was burning like mad,” she said, when the serviceman ran up to her and asked if she had a fire extinguisher, which lay spent on Tyson’s front lawn as fire crews worked.
Tyson may have been lucky as fire officials found the arcing had sparked a fire in wood behind the electrical box in the basement which spread to the floor joists. But the majority of damage was to the electrical system.
“The house is not liveable until the electric is redone,” Schaeffer said. There also was no water for the home since the well pump won’t work without electricity, according to officials.
Jean Tyson’s home sustained approximately $20,000 in damage. She, and her dog, are now staying at a neighbor’s home until repairs can be completed.
If North Coventry was wired for Verizon FiOS, they should be swooping in to offer her a free Verizon FiOS account, thus proving yet again that payback is a ….
To punish Comcast for being naughty, we bring you one additional FiOS ad, pointed out by our reader Smith6612, featuring Michael Bay. It’s definitely worth the entertainment value:
Thanks to Broadband Reports for calling our attention to this story.
Other stories of interest:
- Comcast’s Golden Opportunity in Verizon-Frontier Land
- Broadband War Zone: Getting Down ‘n Dirty in Philly
- Unions Say Frontier-Verizon Deal Means Less Money for Broadband
- Competition in the Nation’s Capital Brings Top Speed Service & Choice – But Comcast Still Caps
- Massachusetts: Verizon-Friendly Bill Not As Consumer-Friendly As Company Suggests
Heh a two year old commercial and it still has it’s uses.
Though in the past didn’t Verizon or Verizon Contractors “blow up” a few homes? I guess with new services coming in these days problems are bound to happen (as is with technology), and of course the negatives always stand out more than the positives unfortunately.
Then again….drilling into an electrical box? Don’t these installers have ANY training, or at the very least common sense?
No clue, really.
Verizon should not be enjoying the irony. It is one thing to advertise a provider tearing up a neighborhood another to know they all have made mistakes before and drilling into an electric box on a nice wet day could have been this installers final resting place. I don’t see the irony in that. Logic would dictate an installer takes a good look from the inside where he plans to drill but training and the strain of having to do 25 installs a day to keep their job gets in the way and no matter what there is always a chance of hitting an in wall electric line or pipe. You never know where they are. There is no humor in this and the battles are getting nasty to the point of dangerous and should be stopped. I really wonder how Verizon would feel if that person had died? It could have been one of their own.
Seems to me the installers could at least be provided with a density detector (i.e. stud finder) and make a pass over the area they intend to drill. If it’s solid for much wider than a simple beam that should be a clue that maybe something besides empty space is in the wall.
I understand and can sympathize with overworked installers and I’m not blaming him per se, simply that a modicum of common sense could have prevented this and other accidents like it.
If I were installing this on my own house, would I just start randomly drilling holes into the wall? Probably not, but most installers I’ve seen for cable companies do just that.
I think you missed the point, Ken. The ‘enjoys’ in the headline was in quotes because it was facetious headline writing, not because Verizon was literally laughing that Comcast set a woman’s house on fire.
Comcast’s ability to run these ads attacking Verizon FiOS installers lose cachet after an incident like this.
They also have a history of controversial labor relations, as Broadband Reports documented:
“Much of the angst directed toward Comcast is directed at low quality sloppy subcontracted labor. In the past few years, Comcast subcontractors have been in the news for falling asleep, murder, digging in the wrong yard, blowing up laptops, dishwashers and homes (with people in them), driving vans into children, and even kitten torture.”
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/98638
Thanks for the comment Phil. I was not being critical in anyway how it was presented but peoples lives are in danger with this battle and they have nothing to say about it. You have to admit it is getting nasty out there.
I think you guys are missing the point. Read what the quote says, electric box next to meter, scorch up to roof. Thats the outside main electrical distribution fusebox/breaker box. They just took a drill to the thing. A stud finder isn’t going to help much if you just take a drill and randomly drill into the main 150 amp distribution box. Even if they drilled from inside the house, IMHO they should have at least checked where the main electrical supply for the house was on the outside.
Joe I have a question where are you located? In all the years of doing electrical work on the side from an entire house to running a single inside line I have never seen a breaker box outside. That would be crazy. Here its pole to the header pipe meter may be outside or inside then off to the breaker box inside. Anybody with half a brain would look inside to see where the main enters the house and what direction their running then drill about a foot away. Here the phone wires were installed first and years later the cable guys used the same hole as the phone wires. Just remove caulk insert wires apply new caulk. The bone head Frontier last time around attached the ground wire to the natural gas meter vent. TWC ran a ground to the inlet water pipe and I asked if they could splice the phone ground to their ground. No problem. I always said TW has top notch service people.
Phil you really got to do something about word wrap in this column. About
a third of this message I cant see but im sure it should post ok but it
makes writing spelling and grammer a real pain while writing. I can send
picture if necessary.