An island architect is suing the Manx Utilities Authority after a power surge caused £33,000 of damage to his home and office.
Mark Pearce, of MP Associates, has lodged a claim for £10,000 against the authority. His case will be heard in the small claims court on October 13.
He contacted the Examiner after reading last week’s front page story in the Manx Independent about how the MUA was replacing scores of electrical appliances damaged beyond repair in 55 properties struck by a power surge that took place during works to recommission a substation at Colby Level.
Mr Pearce, who lives with his wife Christine and his parents Eric and Margaret in Strathallan Crescent, Douglas, said: ‘They seem to have bent over backwards for their customers in Colby yet they’ve left me spending several hundred pounds in fighting my case in the small claims court.
‘You would not expect to get a voltage surge that melts the circuit board in the boiler. The gas board couldn’t believe it. The circuit board was smoking – thankfully it didn’t catch fire.
‘We had 415 volts through the house. It blew everything – the Sky box, routers, TVs, fridge freezers, computers, expensive format printers I use for the business, a photocopier, even a massage chair. My parents who are in their 70s had no heating or hot water for three weeks in the depths of winter. I lost three weeks of work.’
Mr Pearce’s problems began during serious flooding on Queen’s Promenade in January this year. Sandbags stopped the water getting into the house but it seeped into the junction boxes at the front of the properties along Strathallan Crescent, causing the lights to dim.
Engineers from the MUA were at the scene promptly to replace the cabling outside. But when they went to reconnect the supply to homes, the damaging power surge occurred.
Mr Pearce said his neighbours were also affected and had boilers and other appliances damaged. ‘Why didn’t the MUA inform us to turn the electricity off at the mains to protect against a power surge?’ he asked.
He said he had replaced a number of appliances by claiming on his household insurance but other items such as the business printers were not covered.
A letter from the government’s insurers, Zurich, said: ‘We have completed our inquiries and do not accept our insured have breached any statutory duty or been negligent. Once informed of the electrical fault, our insured carried out immediate inquiries to locate and identify the fault. The fault was traced to a low voltage cable joint in the footpath outside no 9, water had entered the joint. The nature of the fault made it impossible to have either predicted or prevented the failure.’
A spokesman for the MUA said: ‘We can’t comment because we are in court proceedings.’