7 On Your Side: Construction crew damages woman's roof during installation

Friday, October 31, 2014
Dish network damages woman's roof during installation
A woman finally received a settlement from DISH after a technicians damaged her home during the isnatllation of her Internet.

HEALDSBURG, Calif. (KGO) -- A Healdsburg woman accused a construction crew of causing extensive damage to her roof and she called 7 on Your Side for help.

Most homeowner's would agree if a work crew damages someone's property, that crew is responsible for fixing it. However as one family found out, proving who's responsible is a different matter for help.

Deborah Bishop said there was water damage done to her wall that was caused by a leak in her roof. The long water mark appeared last winter during a winter storm.

"We were in the office and there was a drip down from the ceiling," Bishop said.

It wasn't until her husband climbed up to clean the gutters that he saw the problem, a big hole in the roof.

Bishop said she has a pretty good idea how the hole got there. A contractor for DISH had been up one the roof to connect Deborah's home for Internet service.

"He had gone up to the roof and then came back in and told me that it would be difficult to go through the roof."

The worker ended up running the cable along the roof and then on the outside of the house.

On the roof itself was mounted this bracket for the Internet.

Deborah's husband did some detective work. The shape of the indent on the roof and the holes matched the bracket

"So these are the two holes from the screws of the mount and we got out a measuring tape and they line up exactly with the mount from DISH."

Deborah sent her pictures to DISH. They sent out an investigator who concluded dish was not at fault. She tried to appeal the decision higher up the DISH chain, but said no one would return her call.

7 on Your Side contacted Dish and DISH agreed to reinspect the roof.

Shortly after, Dish called Bishop and asked her to get estimates for roof and office repair. The estimate came to $2,750.

Bishop hasn't said what settlement she reached with dish and dish did not respond to our request for an interview. Settlements of this nature are often confidential.