A family has been left with an enormous 30-metre trench outside their home after they claim to have been given wrong advice by their water company about a leak on the property.
Vincenzo and Lisa Pranzo described their experience with United Utilities as "horrifying" and a "nightmare" after they followed the advice of an employee which they claim turned out to be wrong.
According to the family, a United Utilities inspector visited their Lancashire home on October 1, 2021, and told Lisa that he was checking properties for leaks due to a recent spate of high water usage in the area.
Having checked the drive and surrounding areas of the property, the inspector told Lisa she had a leak at the corner of her property near the house and said work needed to be carried out.
She told Lancashire Live that when Vincenzo arrived home and had the situation explained to him, he said that in that specific part of the property there were no pipes, but the inspector reportedly assured them there was indeed a leak and he would investigate the matter.
"He said to us, 'yeah you've definitely got a leak', who am I to argue with someone who works for United Utilities and he is supposedly qualified," Lisa said.
"They came back and dug underneath the wall and there's no water visible, but he listens and says 'yeah the leak is definitely under your house' so then obviously you go into panic mode.
"He's explained to me, as the leak's under my property, United Utilities don't fix it, I'm liable to fix that."
United Utilities has said it is sorry Mrs Pranzo is disappointed with the service she has received and said it remains in contact with the couple and their full response is at the bottom of this article.
The couple say they were given two options, they could dig a trench and get a stop tap with an insulated box fitted outside or pay £2500 for a company to use a mole - displacing the soil creating a bore instead of a trench.
Days before Christmas, when the couple still hadn't figured out how they would fix their leak, Vincenzo walked up to the top of the drive when his foot started sinking through the ground.
"As he's walking from the path onto the road, his foot almost sank into the stones- a sinkhole had kind of appeared at the front of the property," Lisa said.
"Now we knew a pipe directly runs there because 12 years ago, the fitting that United Utilities used to branch it off from the supply blew and they had to dig it up and replace that.
"We're thinking at the time, this is where the leak is, obviously there's a large pool of water here."
Looking to their eldest son who is a pipefitter, the family believed that the leak was due to a faulty pipe fitting.
But, during a re-inspection, the couple were told that the leak was simply a "random pool of water".
Lisa said: "He turned up laughing, he's not taking us on, he's telling me first, it's a random pool of water that's appeared- well I've lived in this house for 14 years and I've never seen, even in the most torrential rain, a random pool of water.
"My house is on an incline, the path is about 30cm higher than the front of the house. He's then trying to tell me that the water that's pooled at the top of the path is due to the leak under the house.
"I said 'I'm not being funny and I'm obviously not a plumber myself but water doesn't run uphill.'"
Vincenzo and his son decided to dig up a hole in the path themselves to prove where the leak was coming from.
Having removed all the water from the hole, they watched as the water soon filled the hole up once again showing that the water wasn't coming from a source underneath the house but from the top of the driveway.
Despite being able to show where the leak was coming from, Lisa says the inspector still refused to take on board what they had found, so the family decided to get Christmas out of the way and go back to the inspector's original suggestion to dig up the trench in the new year.
In doing so, Lisa says they would have been able to apply for the Lead Replacement Scheme which allows customers to receive a grant to pay for the replacement fixture.
It states on the United Utilities website: "Under the lead pipe replacement scheme, we may be able to offer a free like for like connection of a replacement water supply pipe (ie same size), from your boundary to the water main in the road or footpath."
Before going ahead, Vincenzo and Lisa asked the company if they were to dig, when would be the closest time they could come out and were told someone could come to replace the pipe in 2-3 days.
"My husband spent three weeks digging this trench that had to be 80cm deep and 30 metres long which is no mean feat in the freezing cold but he did it because there was going to be no other way we were going to be able to afford to do this," Lisa said.
"Then we got an email to say that it was now going to take 3-4 months to connect the water supply because there is a backlog at the council with applying for work permits."
Explaining the severity of the leak and the now gaping hole across their drive, Lisa was able to arrange with the company for another inspection.
"The fella that came out, hats off to him - he was brilliant - I told him what the other fella had said and he's shaking his head," Lisa said.
"He said because lead pipes are such good conductors of sound, you could hear a leak right at the top and I could be hearing it from 10, 20 metres down.
"He raised the job immediately and they were out the next morning- it took them an hour to dig down, find the leak which had nothing to do with my pipe, my pipe was fine.
"It was, as I said, the connection that United Utilities had put in - it was faulty, it was leaking - they fixed it."
Although the leak was fixed, the trench was still there, which caused yet more problems for the family.
During this time, Lisa's youngest, her 8-year-old son, badly hurt his foot on the rubble outside of their home and after an infection, he was put on antibiotics.
"He had to have adult antibiotics in tablet form and he couldn't swallow them so we have to cut open the tablet to give him the power," Lisa said.
"The first two times he vomited in the kitchen floor because it was that bitter- he had to have that four times a day."
While the cost of the job to repair the leak was covered by the company, Lisa rang up the customer service team hoping for some help with the trench they never needed to dig.
After 10 days of not getting a full response back, Lisa says she was told nothing could be done and she would have to fix the trench privately, with no option to speak to senior members of the team herself.
"It's still not over because we're still arguing about it," Lisa said.
"We've invested a lot of money in this house and it's one of the only things we've got of any worth and they've made us do that to our home for no reason.
"The least they should have done is offer to help us put it straight - this is going to cost me money now for a skip, put the patios back and ordering sand and cement.
"My husband is working full-time and has to try and fit that in now around work- I just don't think they understand what they've done.
"He worked really hard and I feel for him, the words '30 metre trench' don't do any justice to the pictures and how hard he worked.
"It's just been a nightmare from start to finish and if United Utilities trained these people better who went round with these listening devices we wouldn't be in this situation we're in now.
"I've paid my water bill and I have been for the past 25 years to the water company, I am never late, I've never once moaned or had a problem and I don't get a phone call from the person who decided this."
United Utilities says their policy stands that private homeowners are responsible for the maintenance of water supply pipes that bring water into their homes from the mains on the street.
Where customers have supply pipes made of lead, United Utilities advise them to replace them and there is a lead pipe replacement scheme the teams will point customers to where appropriate.
A spokesperson for United Utilities said: "We are sorry that Mrs Pranzo is disappointed with the service she has received.
"Whilst we will try to help customers when a leak has been identified on their property it is ultimately their responsibility to maintain the water supply pipe to their home.
"We are still in contact with the customer and we hope they will apply to our lead pipe replacement scheme that can help with grants for replacing lead supply pipes.”
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