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Leak in bathroom ceiling, 1 year after having bathroom fitted
I’m having a bit of a nightmare this week. After gutting and re-doing our bathroom a year ago, a few days ago I discovered a leak from said bathroom in our living room, so I got the bathroom installer in to open the ceiling and check what’s happening.
They said it was due to a cold water pipe joint not being tightened all the way, so all they had to do was to twist it all the way to tighten it. They mentioned that this happened to the pipes that we already had in there, not the ones that they put in. Either way, I believe it was their responsibility to check every joint while they were in there, but they’re not fighting it. They’ve fixed it and will put the plaster back and re-paint anyway.
All is good, but is this pipe joint loosening normal? If the previous bathroom had been done in like 2019-2020, why would it have failed now, like 4 years later? And can I expect this to happen from other joints too over time?
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4 Replies
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I’m an insurance investigator.
I do not believe it was their responsibility to check, and I certainly wouldn’t authorise a liability claim against them if I was provided with this information.
I think I would graciously accept what they have offered you and understand it to be ex gratia (good will) and thank them accordingly.
Pipes absolutely can loosen over time, especially if they weren’t tightened sufficiently in the beginning.
The flex of the floor/bath/movement of water through pipes etc certainly can add to this happening. They cannot be expected to check what they were not tasked to deal with, because realistically, where does this stop? If they touched a pipe that was not their responsibility, that was then connected to another poor joint, then they may be held liable. They’d have to check everything to ensure there would be no further issues and this is just not feasible
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Personally I don’t think it’s their responsibility to check every joint, just the ones they’re working/worked on. Unless the leak would have been noticeable when they were doing the work? Also, joints can loosen over time which is why a lot of people won’t embed water pipes in the wall as by the time you’re aware of the leak you’ve probably already got quite bad water damage.
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Don’t worry about it. It’s really unlikely you’ll get leak after leak, but even if you do they can be repaired! I have found that sometimes things do go wrong in the first year or two after doing work, I think of it as ‘settling in’. But take heart that they’ve fixed it for you quickly and at no cost (hurrah!) and don’t look for problems that aren’t there, as least not yet. Enjoy your new bathroom.
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l appreciate your answers, especially the second part in them. It was my mistake that I didn’t provide enough context for the first part as I wanted to keep the post short. When we bought the house, the bathroom was fairly new (2 years old) but done poorly, so we had a few different leaks from it. When we hired this company, we specifically instructed them to gut everything and restart, at our cost, and in the process everything they found was poorly done and other joints were found to be loose, hence the leaks. They insisted that some pipes were fine though and left them, so that is mostly why I was a bit crossed that not all of them were actually fine or even checked. But that is between me and them, and probably why they aren’t fighting the repair. Thank you for your answers though, good to know that joints can loosen over time.
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