Entitled to compensation? - New Build

jaspercabbage

Do my wife and I have grounds for a compensation claim or would this be unreasonable?

We bought a new build house in January from a large nationwide builders. It's the first time either of us have bought new. On Thursday night at around 10:00 I went into the kitchen and saw that our utility room and downstairs toilet were flooded. After spending about half an hour mopping up the water, my wife went into the lounge and noticed that water was running along the ceiling and down the wall which joins to the utility room wall.
The builder's emergency line arranged for a plumber to call the next morning, and he found that a joint had 'popped' in pipework above the ceiling, which had caused the flooding.
The site manager has agreed to replace all of the downstairs flooring, which has been water damaged, but at the moment we have our furniture in the middle of the lounge until the carpets and possibly the skirting boards are replaced, sometime in the week after next.

We both took a day out of our annual leave from work on Friday. The builder's want to pay three visits in the coming week to repair the lounge and utility room ceilings which were cut open to locate and rectify the leak.
They have asked us to leave keys with them to do this while we are at work, but my wife does not want strangers in our house while we are out. Is this unreasonable? The alternative is for me or the wife to take more annual leave. They cannot give us times for the contractors to turn up so we can't even book half days if necessary.
We will also need to take leave when the carpets/kitchen flooring are replaced. Until this time our living room furniture is squeezed into the dry 3 quarters of the room.

Has anybody had a similar situation and claimed compensation, successfully or otherwise? If we were to claim, what sort of figure would be reasonable given the factors above? Or are we just being greedy?

geoffky

it happened to me years ago with barrets i had to move out three times to a hotel as they had blocked one end of the drains off so every time i had a bath it flooded...they told me to claim on my household insurance....

chickmug

I was affected about 30 years ago with new house problems. In the end all my furniture, carpets and curtains were taken out. We and two kids were put into a hotel for two weeks. All hotel bills were paid without hesitation, including booze, and my wife had the loan of a car as we only had one. I can't remember the figure of compensation but it paid for a two week four star full board spanish holiday.

I was also allocated a senior manager to act as key person and he did a excellent job which helped mitigate the enomous stress.

baileysbattlebus

the first house we bought was a new build - our bathroom flooded - which split the kitchen ceiling. Builder came and repaired the ceiling and the pipe. Fortunately there was no other damage.

One our neighbours at the time had her lounge carpet ruined by a leaking radiator - builder fixed the radiator - she claimed the carpet from her insurance. We were quite lucky the builders were still on site.

Another new build - we moved in November (in Scotland) everything was fine.
The first freeze of the winter and I found water pouring out of our loft hatch.
The joints had all popped up in the loft.

We had to move out over Christmas (23rd December)and New Year - we had a 2 year old, a 1 year old and me at 8 months pregnant, with no water or central heating.

I left a key with a neighbour while we were away.

I think you've been quite lucky, if the builder is replacing damaged stuff. I'm not sure about compensation, I must admit we never bothered, it never crossed our minds.

But if I had a £1 for every day I've taken off work to wait in for something.........

sheslookinhot

Jaspercabbage/ baileysbattlebus

Were the joints that "popped" soldered or pushfit ?

Cheers

jaspercabbage

sheslookinhot wrote: »

Jaspercabbage/ baileysbattlebus

Were the joints that "popped" soldered or pushfit ?

Cheers

I know nothing about plumbing but the joint was plastic, so I'm guessing pushfit.

clobber_2

Funnily enough, same thing happened in our (rented) flat. Blumming pushfit connections are rubbish.

jaspercabbage

clobber wrote: »

Funnily enough, same thing happened in our (rented) flat. Blumming pushfit connections are rubbish.

The plumber said that those type of joints can be unreliable, especially if the fitter tries to rush the job or is a bit careless.

claireyfairy_2

If it is barratts, we had a nightmare too, but not on the scale as described by some on this thread. Keep bugging them, get hold of the mobile number of someone more senior than site manager and keep making a fuss. They can get people round on saturdays if need be. You will have just spent a serious amount of cash. Good luck!

Jonbvn

Some good info on such problems over on http://www.snagging.org/