Leaking shower - insurance? Wwyd,

[ConflictedCheetah]

We had a whole new bathroom fitted last year, almost exactly a year ago.
We noticed water on ceiling last week and believe the shower wasn't properly sealed on one side and can see where grouting is wet on the outside after showers.

In addition this morning we realized the shower tray has cracked. There's a dip under it where the tray seemed to sag a bit so putting weight on it has cracked it.

Trying to contact people who fitted it but they're not answering calls or messages.

Would you have this sorted through house insurance? I want to go after the guys who did it but DH just wants to pay someone else to sort it out and also is worried about insurance premiums if we claim.

Any thoughts or experience?

Well, if you want to go after the guys you are going to need to prove, on the balance of probabilities that the cracking was due to their faulty workmanship, and not a manufacturing fault or something you or your family have done.

After a year that may be difficult, but if you've got deep pockets....

Insurance may at a push cover the damage caused by the leak, although if it's just a matter of a bit of repainting, then probably not worth the excess.

They won't cover the cost of repairing a bathroom because the installer has done a bad job.

Don't have them back. They couldn't do the job right for the money they are unlikely to happily rectify it for nothing. Shit trades people are not worth having back

We had a leak and got insurance pay out. the company asked about recent plumbing work and would have gone after the original company if the work was recent.

We had almost exactly the same thing but the bathroom,wasn't new. In my (extremely bitter) experience, the insurers send out a person to inspect the job and then he says "It's one days work to replace this entire shower cubicle, tray and tiles. You can have our contractors do it or, we'll offer you insert hopelessly inadequate sum here and you can find your own contractor". We used their contractor and they sent a drunk (not kidding) who didn't know how to isolate the pipe work to the shower (I had to show him the isolation valves fitted to the bloody pipes!) and then cut rough hole in the new tile to fit the new pipes through and made a 'mosaic' of odd pieces of tile and grout to cover it. I won't go into the rotten timber behind the plaster board that they just covered up with new plasterboard or any of the other horrendous errors which then lead to a battle with the contractor's head office - the manager eventually admitted that all their insurance jobs were rushed and not done a thoroughly because the inspectors always underestimated timescales. I had to get the bathroom done 3 more times after that - once more by the insurers contractors - it leaked again, then by another incompetent plumber - it leaked again, and eventually by a reliable (at least, 6 months on and so far only one small problem) plumber. Doing it on the house insurance is a nightmare but finding a reliable competent plumber who can book you in to do the work in less than 6months time is the ninth circle of hell! You have my total sympathy - good luck.