Just When You Think You've Done Everything

[Mobilvetta]

Really sorry to hear this and it's likely to spoil your plans for a get away in January, I know what insurance companies are like to deal with having a few houses I rent out, now I always get my own loss adjuster to handle the claim and submit the necessary quotes and deal with there insurance loss adjuster.

They take 10% of the claim as payment and have always got a very generous cash payout, they claim for absolutely everything, things I would never even have thought to claim for, so in essence they pay for themselves and take the work load off you. I've used a company called Bell Green loss accessors in Blackpool a number of times over the years. They will even get the contractors in to do the work if necessary, but I have always used my own.

So far in this freeze and touching wood I haven't had any calls from tenants regarding burst pipes which is surprising as I have some houses in Colne which tends to be a dam site colder than in Blackpool were we are based. I have messaged tenants though and asked them to keep there thermostat's set to a minimum of 12°, not that is there priority or concern.

I've had a few calls though about boilers not working, bloody typical when my son who is my gas Safe engineer decided to bugger off on holiday, but luckily it's always been a case of just thawing out the boiler condenser pipe which the tenants have managed to do with a little advice. Hope you get sorted swiftly, but I can't recommend highly enough about appointing your own loss adjuster to work for you.

 

[GMJ]

Steve

We should start a club.

We came home on Thursday last week, early, from our trip up to the west country due to (presumably) frozen pipes in the MH. When we got home we had no water in the bungalow except the mains incomer on cold. A quick call to our plumber confirmed that the night before it had got down to -11 degrees so presumably a frozen pipe.

Roll forward to exactly 5.30pm on Friday evening and all of a sudden we hear a roar and the smoke alarm going mad. I rushed to our inner hallway to find a waterfall coming through the ceiling through the smoke alarm and a light fitting. I turned off the stop cock and went up to the attic and walked into a wall of water...as one of our pipes had burst too.

I managed to get our plumber out and he came at 7.00pm-ish and found the burst and repaired it. I also managed to organise an electrician for Saturday morning as well. As we couldn't stay in our MH (due to the presumed frozen pipes) we booked into a hotel. It didnt help that Mrs GMJ is full of cold as well so was feeling rank.

I couldn't raise anyone at our insurers so I ut an on line claim in but will try and speak to them today so they can organise some dehumidifiers amongst other things.

Good luck Steve. It's a shit thing to happen.

 

[rugbyken]

sorry steve don’t know your pipe layout spent many years as an emergency plumber as trev said anyone who doesn’t leave their heating set on a min temp in this weather is just careless mine will be set at 11/12 deg for the 3 months we’re in portugal £100. heating bill is much cheaper than a burst pipe, ref your lack of water because they can’t isolate the storage tank our go to in that situation would be lay a stick across the top of the tank & tie up the ball of the ball valve , in most cases a compression fitting or one of the newer pushfit ones will just have expanded & pushed itself clear if soldered fittings it will mean renewing a section of pipe the last big freeze i worked on avg was 10 jobs an hour but that was contracted per job not billing for my time

 

[Pudsey Bear]

Ours is left at 10 as a minimum.

 

[marchie]

sorry steve don’t know your pipe layout spent many years as an emergency plumber as trev said anyone who doesn’t leave their heating set on a min temp in this weather is just careless mine will be set at 11/12 deg for the 3 months we’re in portugal £100. heating bill is much cheaper than a burst pipe, ref your lack of water because they can’t isolate the storage tank our go to in that situation would be lay a stick across the top of the tank & tie up the ball of the ball valve , in most cases a compression fitting or one of the newer pushfit ones will just have expanded & pushed itself clear if soldered fittings it will mean renewing a section of pipe the last big freeze i worked on avg was 10 jobs an hour but that was contracted per job not billing for my time

Thanks Ken, that's really helpful! I didn't go into the loft where the Tank is [I was better deployed emptying buckets and tracking down potentially available Emergency Plumbers etc]. I had forgotten about the wedged under the ball valve in the panic and dodging the bits of falling ceiling that were dropping from 9 feet height! [our new ceiling from 2019 will have to come down, but in a more orderly fashion]

Fingers crossed for Thursday, not least because Elaine has a hospital operation tomorrow and we will have more laundry to add to the mountain of towels that were used to mop up the water on the carpet. Might yet involve a move to hotel accommodation ...

Steve

 

[Trigger]

Why deal with a third-party Insurer ? your Insurance should sort you out and then claim whatever is needed from the other Insurance company ?

 

[nabsim]

No consolation to you Steve but you did better than one of the daughters has with plumbers. She lives in a council house and disabled granddaughters we groom started flooding due to an external frozen pipe(????). Sounds like there has been some cowboy plumbing done when they built the downstairs extension bedroom and wet room. In an event the emergency plumber is booked for 12th January, hopefully!!

 

[Trigger]

Basic plumbing is very simple , a burst pipe just needs a section of the burst pipe cut out and replace the removed piece with a new pipe section and use compression fittings if not aw fay with soldering , use the correct size of pipe [ copper tube ] of course, simple tools needed too , pipe cutter or junior hack saw , file , and spanner to fit the nut on the compression joints,an adjustable spanner will work well, make sure an olive is present in the pipe fitting,[ small brass or copper ring like a wedding ring an olive } Water turned off of course , and also easy to fit a stop cock in the system at the same time either linear or one ended, I am not a Plumber but have taught myself the basics over the years and none of it phases me now, BUT do not mess with GAS both illegal and DANGEROUS. keep a supply of various size copper tube , and fittings in your shed as an emergency burst can happen at any time ?

 

[rugbyken]

a stop tap or a butterfly type isolation valve is certainly worth keeping as a spare, ie cut pipe just below burst fit valve & turn off everything down stream is usable till problem solved , our call out used to specify getting at least one tap working overnight ,
,
best call out shift i ever did we were contracted to the council over a couple of years they had fitted hundreds of condensing boilers a small bore pipe coming through the wall and discharging into an open ended waste pipe taking the condense to a soakaway ! first really bad frost lots froze up took about 20 mins first job figuring out the problem & cure after that it was fly round borrow washing up bowl pull pipe apart & route into bowl to get system working job made safe , under our contract got £15 for a made safe job £25 for completed job didn’t finish till gone 2 so 8 hrs call out on top of my normal day but 5. completed jobs 53 made safe i felt like a banker looking at that months pay packet paid for a kenyan safari holiday ,

 

[Pudsey Bear]

In our last house, we had a loft conversion and extension fitted, the old bathroom became a utility room, and the old kitchen became an ensuite, another bathroom upstairs, and the new kitchen was in the old lounge, on any pipe before it went through or came out of a wall including the C/H had an isolation valve on it, I got through a lot, but a lot of it was being covered over so I wanted to feel secure that I could cover us for any leaks.

 

[marchie]

In our last house, we had a loft conversion and extension fitted, the old bathroom became a utility room, and the old kitchen became an ensuite, another bathroom upstairs, and the new kitchen was in the old lounge, on any pipe before it went through or came out of a wall including the C/H had an isolation valve on it, I got through a lot, but a lot of it was being covered over so I wanted to feel secure that I could cover us for any leaks.

Would that our upstairs neighbour had been so practical and had remembered to use the available protections, Kev!

Steve

 

[Pudsey Bear]

I think Screwfix were doing and off of 40 in a box for a tenner or something.

 

[Trigger]

In our last house, we had a loft conversion and extension fitted, the old bathroom became a utility room, and the old kitchen became an ensuite, another bathroom upstairs, and the new kitchen was in the old lounge, on any pipe before it went through or came out of a wall including the C/H had an isolation valve on it, I got through a lot, but a lot of it was being covered over so I wanted to feel secure that I could cover us for any leaks.

 

[Trigger]

I think Screwfix were doing and off of 40 in a box for a tenner or something.

As a frequent car boot go to I am always on the look out for plumbing fittings usually plenty to be had there, and I have a large stash of all sorts in my shed, cost pennies to acquire too. Never know what might come in handy, I recently had a radiator leaking in my home it had rusted slightly at the bottom, I bought a new rad and had fitted it in no time but had to alter the connecting pipe work etc no problem I had all I needed in my plumbing stash including new valves copper tube and all needed fittings, jobs a good un as they say.

 

[marchie]

Update: The 'Emergency Repair Team were booked last Sunday Evening, to attend today to sort out the leak; and I asked 3 times whether this was a definitie booking. And at 0755 this morning, I received a text; 'Plumber will call between 0900 and 1800, he will call you when you're the next customer', so sat back to wait; then I thought I would phone the Plumber to see whether he would be able to certify that the pipe burst was because of frozen pipes, and not because the pipework was too old/frail to avoid a burst [Cheers, Halifax]. 'You're not booked for today; tomorrow is the earliest we can get to you!

I was about to look for a murder victim, bearing in mind that the owner of the flat had paid for an emergency attendance in preference to the standard provider timetable; but about 40 mins later, the original Standard Provider phoned; 'We have found some extra staff so we'll reconnect you in the next 4-5 hours'! Woohoo!

The poor Plumber had been called in on his day off and given 9 jobs over a wide area [Perth, Fife and in the general direction of Glasgow] and when he climbed into the loft there was a wailed 'WTF are all these effin' pipes?'. But the wee hero found the 'popped joint' and took photos of the 'before' and 'after' pipework, The popped joint was damn near twice the length of the replaced pipe, so the ends of the pipe were barely in contact with the original union/joint!

He isolated the upstairs flat's Water Tank, tested that our system worked without problems for either us or upstairs and went on his merry way. What an absolute hero! And the joy of being able to visit the bog without carrying a bucket of water for flushing purposes ... Just the new ceiling, drying of electrics, carpet and underlay, and a check that there are no emergent Dry Rot spores and we will be sorted! I think the paperowrk will take weeks, or even months unless Halifax issue a blanket 'get your own contractors for bills of up to £x' authority. I spoke to 2 passing Plumbers whilst I was standing guard over the open pavement stop cock drain, and both said that they hadn't had time to finish off the paperwork/certifications for Claims Processing, it was just one pipe connection after the other to get people water supplies in time for Xmas. An unusual, but valuable Xmas pressie!

The next Carol will be 'Crapping in peace, crapping in peace' to the tune of 'Silent Night'

Steve

 

[GMJ]

We were fortunate really. I rang out usual plumber and he was with us within an hour or so. He found the leak and fixed it and all for £95.

You make the point Steve but its worth repeating for folks to tuck away in their mind: if the leak isn't down to a frozen pipe our insurers regard this as wear and tear so won't pay for the plumber or repair. If it is down to being frozen, they will. I made sure that the plumber put 'attended burst pipe due to being frozen' on his invoice.

Having had the buildings repair team out we now have to have all new ceilings; new coving; and complete decoration of our inner hallway and stairwell plus the ceilings being redone in 2 other rooms. All because of this wee beasty...

 

[Pudsey Bear]

Wear & tear, maybe on a valve, but I don't think pipes wear out unless being rubbed.

Next, they will say if the property isn't sufficiently heated we won't pay which at least is more reasonable, but you can't heat everywhere.

 

[GMJ]

I agree Kev. Wear and tear is a ridiculous phrase to use for an inanimate object like a pipe that sits there and does nowt more then it was designed for.

 

[Pudsey Bear]

It could o.nly apply to taps, isolation valves or ballcocks to my mind, Boiler or appliances maybe too.

 

[marchie]

We were fortunate really. I rang out usual plumber and he was with us within an hour or so. He found the leak and fixed it and all for £95.

You make the point Steve but its worth repeating for folks to tuck away in their mind: if the leak isn't down to a frozen pipe our insurers regard this as wear and tear so won't pay for the plumber or repair. If it is down to being frozen, they will. I made sure that the plumber put 'attended burst pipe due to being frozen' on his invoice.

Having had the buildings repair team out we now have to have all new ceilings; new coving; and complete decoration of our inner hallway and stairwell plus the ceilings being redone in 2 other rooms. All because of this wee beasty...

View attachment 65282

Our neighbours pipe was even more innocuous, Graham! It was as RugbyKen described, a 'popped joint' that had pushed the copper pipe out of the union joint

Steve