Who is to blame? house builder or me?

alyson2208

Hope this in the right place.

Hi hoping someone can give me some advice for my parents!
Six years ago they bought a brand new house, Yesterday they had water coming through their utility room ceiling.

They got the house builder to come out to have a look as they have had problems in the past with the heating system so they thought it would be this.

The house builder Found the problem to be from the shower in the bathroom above they said the problem is due to bad maintenance as the grout between the tiles has hairline cracks and the tiles would only be holding on as they are in place and that the adhesive would be rotten also the boards behind the tiles would be rotten due to this happening for a long period of time. The tiles in the shower look fine there is no mould or anything on them, the grout is still white, they still look as good as when they moved in.

They have said they will not fix it!

Do you think it was due to bad workmanship at the time of the bathroom being done?

Do you think after 6 years this type of problem should be happening?

Do you think they are at fault for not having these things checked regularly?

Would be grateful for anyone’s advice .

System

it's interesting as they have identified the problem without actually exposing anything - to find out if what they have said is correct you would have to strip off all the tiles in the bathroom!
there are certain things that house builders seem to be able to escape fixing, there must be a document somewhere saying what defects they are liable for, however, if they are saying it's a maintence issue you would have to get a third party to assess it properly (which could cost more than just retiling!)

olias

Are there any visible cracks in the grout? missing grout? gaps around the sealant?

Is the shower in a stand alone cubicle or over the bath? Either way you should be able to either remove the bath panel, or panel around the base of the shower tray, to see behind and get a better idea of the problem. Has the builder done this? Did they actually point out where they thought the water was ingressing? It could just as easily be from the waste leaking.

TBH, after 6 years, unless you could get a surveyor to write a report confirming that the level of any rot would have to have meant a leak for over 4 years, then you will have great difficulty in pursuing the builder. Under NHBC guidelines, AFAIK, the builder is only resonsible for things like plumbing/tiling etc for the first two years, after that for the remaining 8 years of the NHBC guarantee, the cover is only for structural problems.

Olias

alyson2208

thank you for your replies

olias wrote: »

Are there any visible cracks in the grout? missing grout? gaps around the sealant?

Is the shower in a stand alone cubicle or over the bath? Either way you should be able to either remove the bath panel, or panel around the base of the shower tray, to see behind and get a better idea of the problem. Has the builder done this? Did they actually point out where they thought the water was ingressing? It could just as easily be from the waste leaking.

Olias

No visible cracks or gaps everything looks as it should.
The shower is enclosed with 3 sides of tiles and 1 side with sliding shower doors, I think they should be able to take the front off of the shower tray, they never removed anything just ran the shower on the wall a little and some water went through to the utility room so they said that's the problem, will tell them to try to take the side of the shower tray off and see if they can get a better idea of where/what the actual problem is.

System

could just as easily be the waste for the shower in that case, unless they blocked the waste whilst showering the tiles??
if they didn't you could try and block the waste and repeat the test, see if it happens when no water is running out the plughole... think you are going to lumped with it either way

phill99

I run a maintenance company and used to undertake defects work for a regional house builder.

The builder generally has a 2 year liability period for defects, within which time, defects will be rectified at the builders expense.

There is the NHBC certificate which lasts for 10 years but only covers the superstructure.

Unfortunately, you are out of time on the defects period and the NHBC certificate won't cover this.

macman

The problem with shower wall leaks is that it takes only the tiniest hairline crack in the tiling/grouting/sealant and the water will still get in-then it's got to go somewhere-which is down.

CaptainKidd

I would go with the r sole above in that you should cover up the waste to block the water from going down the drain and see if it still leaks, alternativeley leave the drain unblocked and point the shower head directly to the drain so all water goes down the drain and no where near the walls and if it leaks then its the drain.

The_Pedant

Would be surprised for it to be the tiles, unless you have a lot of water landing on them & the cracks are fairly evident. With even a big crack I'm sure it'd take a while for sufficient water to run through the crack & pool in the ceiling space enough to then start coming through. I'd try the suggestions above for blocking the plug & seeing if that's the cause, it can be a common issue (or somewhere in the shower basin leaking).