An anonymous reader in Colorado says Dish Network broke her house while installing equipment on her roof. She says the destructive setup, which sprung holes in her roof due to some overzealous, ill-advised nail placements, led to $20,400 in repairs.

Her story:

Dish Network installed their dish on our house and ran the cabling ACROSS THE ROOF of our $600K home. Several years ago the roof began to leak so we had a roofer out to fix it. This past spring it began leaking again so we called out the same roofer to fix it again. He told us the reason it was leaking was because Dish Network put dozens of holes in the roof and that it was only going to get worse. In addition to that, the roofing that we have is no longer made so we could not just replace the sections that were directly damaged.

I filed a damage claim with Dish Network spring 2010. They sent someone out twice to take photos and assess the damage. In August they turned it over to their third party administrator Gallagher Bassett (Dish is self-insured) who sent out an adjuster to evaluate the damage. He told me that, “it is a mess up there…” that the damage was caused by the installation of the Dish cabling and that it will only begin to leak more because of all the holes. He also said that there is no way to patch it because of the nature of the roofing material. That was on August 12, 2010.

Living in Colorado and knowing that the snow could begin flying any day, my husband and I were concerned about incurring even more water damage from these leaks.

The reader says an insurance company investigated, found Dish was responsible for the damage and told her to ahead with the repair because it wouldn’t stop the claim from being paid. Things didn’t quite work out that way, though. She had the roof replaced, but due to a technicality, the insurance company had to pass the case on to another insurer. Now she has no proof of the damage she says Dish caused, other than the original report from the old insurer. The reader believes she’s stuck in limbo and will not receive a settlement.

What would your next move be if you were under the reader’s newly repaired roof?

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