If you are responsible for a block, you need to have an out of hours resource or provision to ensure due care for both your residents and your assets but what, maybe in the worst case, could that service be dealing with? Colin Stokes, MD of adiuvo, shares a case study of a recent single emergency and what was involved in managing it;
A large site of well over 100 units generated multiple reports of no water supply on a Friday evening of the Bank Holiday weekend, our team quickly confirmed it was not a local outage and therefore had 2 possibilities of either a leak or pump outage. With no site staff out of hours and a further report of standing water in the car park we procured plumbers to attend to a likely leak.
The plumbers attended and reported a burst 2-inch copper main and with a no likelihood of sourcing a part for the long weekend, we therefore we authorised and organised the following;
- Water to be isolated.
- Sourced 4 x portaloos for delivery to site next day.
- 5 litre bottles of water per flat also for the next day.
- Tanker to pump out pit to access burst as sump pump flooded by burst along with electrician to reinstate the controls.
- Major text and email notification to all residents advising of the above whilst dealing with multiple incoming calls regarding the situation.
Once the above works were completed it was re-confirmed several parts required were not available until after the Bank Holiday, at this point we conferred with client emergency contact and further arranged;
- Another text/email update, wording for notices to be printed by contractor to be posted around development to ensure all notified.
- Further delivery of water.
- In conjunction with Loss Adjuster 5 families were provided alternate accommodation due to at risk members with our team procuring the rooms.
- Provided our client with contractors from our approved suppliers list to ensure the above was delivered.
In total we received and made over 150 calls in dealing with this one major issue and dealt with more than 30 stakeholders. Although this is an extreme, and a long way from a standard lift breakdown call, it does show that whatever process you have in place it needs, at times, to be able to deal with extreme circumstances and volume.
