Pipe burst - what should be done?

steelercaz13

copied this post from the insurance forum, as thought it might get more answers here

Hi guys

Though this is my first post, I've been reading the forums here for about 12 months - partly thanks to you guys I have a great mobile phone deal, cheap gym membership and pretty cheap utiliity bills!!

But back to the point...

We have been modernising our upstairs bathroom for about 12 months, determined to get it absolutely perfect. We finally finished a few weeks ago. However, yesterday we had a pipe burst behind the sink. Luckily I was at home, and it can't have been happening for more than an hour, but my word was it dramatic!

We have a combi boiler, so upstairs it was spraying high pressure hot water across the bathroom. You step down into our bathroom from the landing, and the water was a good 4inches deep. I managed to fit the pipes back together, and turned off the water at the stopcock.

Unfortunately it had already attacked the kitchen downstairs (which is what I initially heard) - it was a couple of centimetres deep in there, and there were streams pouring down all 4 walls, out of a light switch, out of the extractor fan above the hob, gushing out of the light fitting and pooling on the worktops. It all drained away pretty quickly once I'd stopped the flow, and now I'm trying to work out what will happen.

The assessor is here this afternoon, and i want to make sure we don't get a raw deal. I thought they'd just leave it to dry out and repaint the kitchen. However, my boyfriend feels that because the water will have got behind the kiitchen cupboards they'll need to rip them out and replace, re-plaster the walls (there's quite a few cracks where the dampest bits are) and take up the laminate flooring which is separating slightly. Inside one of the cupboards there's a damp patch and the wood is slightly bumpy.

Also, above the door between the kitchen and the dining room the water has soaked through and there was a damp patch around 2ft square above the door, which has now faded but the wall paper is all bumpy and slightly peeling. There is also a slight damp patch on the ceiling of the dining room.

So my quesiton is, for people who have been through this kind of thing before, or for anyone on the building trade, what should we expect / what should they do? I'm worried if they don't change the cupboards they might start to rot behind as they'll not dry out easily?

Sorry for long message, it's just neither of us have ever clained on any kind of insurance, never mind home insurance, so don't know what to expect / insist on.

Thanks in advance for any advice!