Careful now..this is a dull one...

[ChopOrNot]

Household insurance, leaky showers and ripping out the bathroom.

We have had a leaky shower for sometime. Had builder round when first had drips through the ceiling...resealed the silicone. Worked for a bit. Then back. Noticed some cracked grout..fixed. Leak gone for a bit. Now back. Resealed all of it. Ditto, fixed then back. We literally do not know what to do next. Short of ripping up the floor (tiled) pulling up the low-level shower tray...which could potentially mean having to redo the whole thing. For on what I can tell the current tiles are now discontinued. So we would need to retile whole room with something new.

Now to the reason for my post. Would this be covered under my household insurance? Is it even worth contacting them? Am wary of doing so on the off-chance, as did that once before for something that turned out to be a £50 fix...but because I had made an inquiry, despite not pursuing past one phone call, they put my premium up for about 2 years.

Has anyone had similar and been covered? Sorry is such a basic and dull question but never really used the household/buildings insurance for anything before (apart from the non issue which cost me in hiked premiums anyway).

Thank you if you can be bothered to reply.

[AgnesGrey]

Chop,
I see your dullness and I raise you

When they resealed the silicon did they actually properly take out the old silicon before they resealed it? We had similar - the first chap just sort of patched it up which worked for a short time. Next chap took it all out properly and redid it - has been fine since.

Don't know about the insurance I am afraid.

Agnes

[NoonAim]

Insurance won't pay to repair shower but should pay for consequential damage eg ruined ceiling in room below.
If they put up your premiums change insurance company.
We were burgled a few years ago and Halifax insurance tried to double our premiums after paying out - we now have the same cover with Direct line for less than the old policy cost.

[ChopOrNot]

Hmmm. Maybe worth contacting them then. May have a chat with builder too to see what the cost for ceiling repair would be.

Anyone else?

[ChopOrNot]

Agnes - yes trust them to have taken it all out properly. Trouble is the low-level shower tray was put in with a waterproof membrane underneath it - which then means that tracing the actual point of the leak is nigh on impossible. We cannot tell if it is the edges of the shower of the drainage point - but only leaking when the waterproof membrane is overflowing.

Am sooo sick of the whole thing.

[AgnesGrey]

If you want to PM with where you are I can tell you the name of the plumbers who did our diagnostic stuff - not the cheapest but on two occasions in two houses they found the problem. Once we got them to fix it , once we just paid them to identify it and found someone cheaper to do the work.

[echt]

You need to put out an APB to PigletJohn, MN's uberplumber.

[Trickydecision]

I agree with Noon having had a similar situation ourselves. Insurance should pay for all the consequences of the leak, just not a repair to the shower itself.

[ChopOrNot]

Would that include replacing the plasterboard of the en-suite room if that had blown (which I am sure has happened)?

How do I find PigletJohn?

[Trickydecision]

Can't help with finding PigletJohn.

You should get the plasterboard replaced. As an example, we had a horrible smell in the downstairs loo. It turned out that the pipe connecting loo to underground pipe had not been sealed properly. To get to this junction involved breaking the tiled floor. No matching tiles were available so the whole floor had to be replaced. We had to pay for the relatively small cost of the new seal but insurance paid for the new floor.
Similarly a blocked drain on the roof caused a flood which damaged the bedroom below, insurance paid for a complete redecoration. This happened soon after we moved here and had not got around to replacing the horrible wallpaper and it did not occur to me to claim for that part of the damage. The insurers sent a Loss Adjuster round and he massively upped our claim - he was lovely and said just because we did not like the wallpaper it was obviously good quality and they would pay not only for the materials but for someone to do it! Unheard of previously in the Tricky household as we had always done this sort of job ourselves.

Hope you have equal success!

[CountBeculaMumsnet]

Hi all - we're just going to pop this over to Property for the OP.

[specialsubject]

go read your policy but I bet you'll find words about maintenance and 'sets'.

don't even think of trying this on the insurance, and don't leave it until the ceiling comes down or they will spot the problem.

sounds like you have a form-over-function bathroom where someone didn't think about maintenance. Regret it may need pulling bits up and out.

sorry. The joys of house ownership.

[ChopOrNot]

What does the term "sets" mean please?

[whataboutbob]

This is not boring to me as i am in the same boat. I manage Dad's student flat as he's too ill himself. There's water all around the bathroom floor and now it's getting onto the hall floor. It;s a flat, I don't know about the flat downstairs (no complaints so far). The floor is concrete.No idea if it's defective sealant, or burst pipes. The letting agents' contractors were supposed to go over and I'm awaiting their report. Unfortunately I live 2 hours away so can't pop over and have a look and try and diagnose the problem.

[ChopOrNot]

Had builder round to give me an idea of cost of just fixing the ceiling - would probably be at least 2 plasterboard panels and a re-skim - so looking £500-£600 min (huge kitchen). Have contacted insurance. They are going to send out a surveyor/assessor once the leak fixed - but we have a trace and access policy - so it will cover having the remove tiles/parts of the ceiling if required/reasonable to fix the leak. Excess is £250.

Will update as when anything to update. Thank you to everyone who has posted - made me realise what may/may not be claimable - so even if just the cost of the ceiling fix it is what I have been paying insurance for for years.

[specialsubject]

sorry - when insurers talk about sets they mean things such as not replacing the whole furniture suite if one bit gets damaged, so you end up with a replacement armchair but not a matching one.

for bathrooms, it means you get another toilet, not part of the set, and you don't get the whole place retiled just because some tiles are broken.

[ChopOrNot]

Ahh, that makes sense now. Was not really expecting that a whole rip-out/replace would be covered - just a bit hopeful . Looks like a chunk of the repair of the ceiling - and possibly the wall will be.

If we decide to re-do the whole thing then that is a decision based on what we would be happy to spend on top of any fixing the damage so that is fair enough. Builder thinks that there must be a way to access and repair leak without ripping the whole thing up.

Not looking forward to a holey ceiling tbh but needs must.

[Marmitelover55]

We had a similar situation with water damage in hall below. We needed to new Victorian player cornice made to match. The insurers paid for this and the subsequent redecoration of the hall, but not for fixing the original leak. They also them excluded water damage from future claims, although I think it's no longer excluded now 5 years later.

[Trickydecision]

Marmite talks sense. That is how our insurance worked and so should yours.

[LBOCS2]

If your insurance has a trace and access clause in it, then the cost of repairing any damage you have to cause in tracing and accessing the leak should be covered. This includes retiling the floor, and should also include the original plumbers' bills as they did not find the cause of the leak - that's part of the 'trace' work.

Having said that, do speak to them before you start ripping apart your bathroom. I've never had it disputed though, and I run a lot of claims for clients.