A homeowner says his house that’s more than 100 years old is falling apart, and it’s not because of old age.
Instead, he says it’s because a CenterPoint Energy contractor damaged it while trying to install an underground gas line.
The fight to make things right has been going on for more than two years now.
You can’t see where the problem occurred because the homeowner says the crew that caused it, covered it up with dirt immediately afterwards.
“Very proud of this house. It was built in 1920, and I’m proud to say that I’m the third owner,” S. Ray Schneider said, who owns the house on Pizer St. in the Norhill Historic District of Houston Heights.
He’s lived in the home—made from cypress wood—for 20 years. He says he never had any major problems until early September in 2022, when Digco was contracted by CenterPoint to install an underground gas line.
“What they do, is use a machine that drills under the street, and it goes through to run this PVC line,” Schneider said.
He says a Digco worker mistakenly hit a corner pier that supports the back of his 102-year-old house.
“It was just the epitome of a 12-guage shotgun blast,” he said.
He showed KPRC 2 cell phone video he took in the aftermath.
“As a contractor or sub-contractor, no one has the authority when y’all cause damage to something, and you break lines to fix things?” Schneider asked the contracted worker.
“Yeah, we fix them, but that’s what I was saying. You have to go through our claims department,” the worker replied in the video.
When he tried to file a claim with Digco, he says the company denied causing any damage. But pictures and videos showing cracks and separations tell a different story.
If you walk inside the house and just put a little weight on the floor, you can hear and feel everything shaking.
The walls, countertops and floors inside the home also cracked.
We tried reaching out to the same Digco representative Schneider said he had been speaking with, but we got no answer.
Schneider says the damage inside his home is estimated at around $30,000 and that doesn’t include the money to fix the pier because no contractor will touch it. He says he’s been told the gas line which should be further out, is too close to his home.
Meanwhile CenterPoint sent this statement:
“Our claims team reviewed a claim on the matter and was in direct communication with this customer in 2022. Because this claim is related to a third-party contractor’s work, we initiated a conversation between the company and this customer. We will follow up with both the customer and the contractor to determine any additional assistance we can provide to help resolve the matter.”
