Flooded house due to builders nailing water pipe

freakatronic on 23/12/2019 - 20:21

Good evening OzB hive mind. Someone I know has a flooded house right now because the builder of the house put a nail through an upstairs water pipe. The nail eventually rusted through and no longer seals the hole it out in the water pipe. Now six months after moving in, the house is now flooding from the ceiling. This has damaged the whole lower floor.

The builder is saying to contact the insurance company. The insurance company naturally is saying they won't touch it, as it's the builder's fault.

Any ideas of where to start? Anyone with similar experience? Thanks :) MS paint docs to follow.

Home & Garden

Comments

  • Typical16-bitEnjoyer on 23/12/2019 - 20:38
    -1

    Lawyer up.

    • freakatronic on 23/12/2019 - 20:38

      Is there anything cheaper?

      • Ryanek on 24/12/2019 - 13:49

        Lawyer down.

  • [Deactivated] on 23/12/2019 - 20:39
    +3

    Suggest plugging the hole first.

  • cheaplee on 23/12/2019 - 20:40
    +3

    No experience with this in particular, but if you call insurance and say 'this bloke with his own insurance caused damage to my house' naturally they are going to say contact him to sort it out.

    The builder on the other hand is never going to accept liability, it will have to be pinned on him if he is at fault. I understand this, I wouldn't want up constantly have to prove myself competent, it's up to others to prove me negligent.

    I would think calling insurance back and saying 'my house is damaged and the builder said there was no way it could have been him' would be sufficient to lodge a claim. It would then be up to the insurance company to prove fault.

    Or at least that is how I would hope my insurance company would work. I may be way off though…

    • freakatronic on 23/12/2019 - 20:56
      +2

      That's probably a good point regarding proof of liability. I've passed what you wrote on. I think the insurance company should be the one to get to work, as they'll recoup their costs from the liable party in the end anyway.

  • Muzeeb on 23/12/2019 - 20:49

    MS paint docs to follow.

    How long exactly?

    • freakatronic on 23/12/2019 - 20:52
      +1

      I was hoping you'd be able to tell me. C'mooon.

  • rhimes on 23/12/2019 - 21:16
    +1

    Your insurance should take it and they should chase the builder up for cash. You'll probably have to pay excess till fault is found tho.

    • freakatronic on 23/12/2019 - 21:21

      That sounds like how things should be, given the builder is dodging responsibility.

  • chumlee on 23/12/2019 - 21:27
    +1

    What do you mean by "The insurance company naturally is saying they won't touch it, as it's the builder's fault"?

    If you make a claim through insurance this is something they should cover

    • freakatronic on 23/12/2019 - 21:45

      Hm alright. I'll pass that on, thanks.

      For me, I've never had something like this happen. I've never claimed insurance for a house either.

  • whooah1979 on 23/12/2019 - 22:15

    The nail eventually rusted through and no longer seals the hole it out in the water pipe. Now six months after moving in,

    The copper pipe didn’t leak for 6 months sounds unbelievable.

    • freakatronic on 23/12/2019 - 22:33

      The plumber they hired found the nail.

    • [Deactivated] on 23/12/2019 - 22:33
      -2

      Potentially possible. Watch House. Lots of episodes solved because of old wounds breaking down.

      As usual, it's not Lupus.

    • deme on 31/12/2019 - 00:20

      I can't tell anymore if you are trolling or from another reality. How long should it take for a nail in a tap water pipe to rust before leaking enough that it floods?

      • whooah1979 on 31/12/2019 - 01:36

        It depends on the type of nail and the amount of oxygen it is exposed to.

        • deme on 31/12/2019 - 07:41

          You said it was unbelievable.

          • whooah1979 on 31/12/2019 - 08:22

            @deme: Yes. It is unbelievable that it took 6 months for the nail to rust.

            • deme on 31/12/2019 - 08:45

              @whooah1979: It didn't take 6 months to start rusting , it took 6 months for the leak to be big enough that someone noticed.

              • whooah1979 on 31/12/2019 - 09:25

                @deme: We once damaged a lead-in with the tip of a tool no larger than a bullet nail. The leak only took a few minutes to flood the property.

  • 87percent on 24/12/2019 - 03:29

    Good luck is all I can say. A guy at work did a renovation, the guy putting the insulation in the roof cavity put it too close to the downlighting and the house got burnt. Took nearly 2 years to get sorted via the courts. They just moved back into their house a few weeks ago.

    Guy looked like he went to war in Afghanistan, really took a toll on him

  • donkcat on 24/12/2019 - 08:03

    I know of a sort of similar situation but no where near as severe as it was during the building phase. The builders returned on a Monday and water had flooded all the timber flooring, the expansion had caused the boards to move and buckle out of position in some cases. It was traced back to a nail in a pipe that was thought to be caused by the plasterer however the plumber got the blame because he failed to do a pressure test before switching the water on. After a bit of a blame game between the plasterer and the plumber it ended up being the plumber who paid for the repair as he couldn't prove the plumbing was water tight before switching on the water even though it was likely the pipe was damaged after the plumber had been and gone. This was all settled quite quickly without any legal action.

  • Euphemistic on 24/12/2019 - 09:55
    +1

    It should be under the builders warranty if it is new work. The owners insurance might come to the party if there is no joy from the builder. Go back to the builder until it is fixed.

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