Kitchen crisis! Not sure who to call

[Chalatte]

Super stressed out and not sure what to do so posting here for help/advice.

A couple weeks ago we noticed the laminate floorboards were starting to look off in the kitchen. Stuck a rug over it it thinking it's a bloody old house that needs doing anyway.

A while later we noticed that the rug getting stained and damp. That's when we realised there's a leak in the kitchen.. It's seeping under the floorboards and causing the floors to swell and rise.

Got a plumber in and the guy looked everywhere and says there's no leak as far as he can tell. It might be behind the dishwasher but h wasn't able to pull it out to check. My husband tells him we need the floors fixed anyway so we will be doing that soon enough. The guy goes and tells him to call when the floors are ripped up so he can investigate better.

The only thing is it's been 2 weeks and the floors are getting progressively soggy. Walking on them caused water to squelch out (disgusting I know). But he's been so slammed with work that he hasn't been able to follow up on this. I called the guy who would do our kitchens and he says he'll come after easter but he hasn't come around yet.

Now I'm worried this is turning into a far bigger problem than it might have started out as. I feel like calling a plumber won't help because the previous guy couldn't pull out the dishwasher as it wasn't very easy to move and my husband says he is too slammed to chase this up.

In short I'm stressing out and I don't know whom to call to fix this! Anyone have something similar who can advise what to do? Should I find another plumber? A handyman or someone on task rabbit etc? Any advice welcome no judgment please !

You get a plumber who CAN pull out the dishwasher to investigate further. Can you speak to a heating engineer company (who services your boiker?), they should be able to help you.

No judgement, it sounds stressful! But you obviously need to get to the bottom of it asap which you know. You'll have to rip the floor up asap, can you do that yourself? If not yes ask a handyman to come round and book the plumber in too as he suggested. It will be ok!

Get another plumber and tell him when you call you need him to pull out dishwasher (bringing a second person with him if necessary).

Maybe stop using your dishwasher? If you think it’s leaking don’t keep using it.

Can you call your home insurance, I had a similar issue and they sent someone out to fix it.

Leaks are a nightmare. Are you in an area where you can call out one of the big firms - Pimlico Plumbers, or Aspect? They’re very expensive (and honestly I had a truly terrible experience one of the two times I’ve used Aspect, although the other time they identified a hidden leak and fixed it) — but the upside is they have loads of capacity. If not one of those two, have a look for a big plumbing firm near you rather than a one-man band? The good sole traders are like bloody gold dust and can pick and choose which jobs to take on, and fiddly leak detection stuff might just be too much of an arse ache for them.

This. They will often cover leak detection

You need to get a plumber round as an emergency. You can't just ignore this, it needs fixing. It could be coming from drains, a pipe, an appliance.

Phone your home insurers!

The first thing I would do in that situation is fill some jugs and the bath with water then turn the water off. Then work out if you have an isolator for any other pipes where the leak could be. Then get the dishwasher out and see if you can find the leak. If you can find it, great. If not, then time to book someone for leak detection.

We had this problem, looked like we had a tidal wave of water by the end! Turns out the kitchen tap was leaking heavily behind the kitchen cabient, took 4 plumbers to figure it out. 🙄

My dishwasher leaked from underneath when it wasn’t in use. Only was to stop it was to close the connection behind it which you could only do by pulling the dishwasher out or turning water off completely

i am confused as to why no one can pull the dishwasher out? If it damages the floor it’s going to need replacing anyways

As well as what @Ineffable23 says, go full on detective mode yourself; look at incoming and outgoing water at each point or device. If it's enough to make the floor go squodgy then that's likely a fairly large amount of water and should be obvious quickly.

Why is the dishwasher that hard to get out? It's got to come out, may as well work it out yourself. I wonder if the difficulty getting it out is a sign - perhaps it's been pushed back too far, has knocked the waste pipework, started leaking when it drains, floor has lifted, can't get dishwasher out.
If it's that, then that's dead easy to fix (except that you will need to replace the floor too).

Had another chat with hubby and he says the plumber didn't think the dishwasher was the issue either (and he also wasn't able to double check by pulling it out)

He's got another week to deliver a deadline at work and is having to work overtime nearly everyday this month so can't really do much at the moment, plus I work full time in an office so haven't been able to sort this out by myself either. I'm shit at diy but will have a peek under floors when I'm home tomorrow.

Thank you all for the advice, I have found my home insurance details and will have a read and give them a call first thing in the morning, and also check with another plumber to see if they can find the leak.

On the bright side we were already meant to do the kitchen so this just pushes us to do it sooner!

I definitely couldn't do nothing about it for a week or more. But different strokes for different folks and all that.

Definitely get onto your home insurance.

Do you know where your water meter is and your stopcock? With that much escaped water leaking from somewhere I'd be filling a few buckets, pans, bottles and the kettle then turning the water off (and probably calling my dad...😂)

OP why haven't you called your insurance company? You can call then out of normal office hours and at the weekend. You may have leak detection as part of your cover (we do) and they'll send someone very quickly as they don't want it to turn into a massive claim. I think you need to prioritise this unless you want a really massive problem.....

If it’s that bad and you can’t sort it out/ get someone in are you shutting off the mains at either the street or your internal stop cock if you are all out during the day? We did this for a couple of months (and overnight) when we had a mains leak and I couldn’t get on it straight away. Will stop the water ingressing elsewhere when you are not using it. Basically any toilet visits overnight we just left till morning to flush and would have the mains water on for a quick half hour shower etc before turning off when we both went to work.

If I were you I’d take the floor up and look yourself. You don’t need to be a plumber to work out where the water is coming from (you might need a plumber to fix it).

I had exact same thing.
it’s a lot of water to be escaping, stop using the dish washer. Can you see how much water is being used by the water meter ? Thames water actually wrote to me. Don’t use a leak tracer, usually a waste of money a decent builder will be able to tell

I can't tell you how much sleep I'm losing over this! We have had too many things on which means both of us have been overworked and running around between kids, home, work and other demands of life this has not been very easy to get to

The leak was quite insidious in that it crept up on us, but yes it's defo gotten to a stage where it's too much.

There's no water springing out of a hole in the pipes as you might imagine and it doesn't seem it's the dishwasher either(as I said in my previous messages, hubby saysthe plumber didn't think it was that?) it was a lot more subtle until now so I think it's a slow leak somewhere

I am going to get through to insurance tomorrow and see if they can send someone ASAP

You really need to do this today! Your insurance company may complain that you didn't get this sorted straight away and have caused further damage by leaving the leak for 2 weeks!

I’ve just been through what you have. Mine was a dishwasher leak under my wooden floor, only realised when it squelched up too. Once I pulled the dishwasher out it was clearly that.

Put an insurance claim in and they basically sort it all out for you. I won’t lie, there’s lots to do still but the organising gets done for you. A couple of months later I have a lovely new floor and freshly decorated kitchen, hall and landing. Flooring was continuous into the hall and as skirting boards are removed you get it all decorated.

Who says slammed to describe busy? Is it a thing?
This whole post stresses me out. I cannot imagine leaving water uncontrolled. That's a shitshow waiting to happen

We had a leaky radiator valve that did this. Have you taken the base boards off your kitchen to have a look underneath?

Excellent idea, if you take off the kick boards, as we call them, you should have a full run of the units and can see which appliance is wet under. If they’re all dry, then it could be the radiator.