water coming through light fitting..

Missy_Spud

Hi, I had a plumber out earlier to try and establish what was wrong with my bathroom, whilst inspecting under my bath, think he undid a pipe and some water came out of it, which dripped through my ceiling! it was coming out from the light fitting too, which is a hanging type sort of metal bars curve down and out almost chandelier like with the bulbs on the end of each bar.

I turned the light off as soon as i saw water coming down, iv'e got the heating on high hoping to dry any wetness out that's under the bath/ceiling, It was probably dripping for 5-10 mins, not loads of water, I just put towels down which was sufficient to catch the drips.

I'm worried about fire hazards of this though, and especially worried about going to bed tonight, I am currently on my own in the house bf is away,and I know nothing about plumbing/electrics, so need some advice on what to do, should I turn downstairs lights fuse off in main fuse box cupboard? or will it be ok left switched off at the light switch and left to dry out for a few days?

This happened at 11ish this morning, havent switched light on since.

Thanks

elsien

I'd be fetching the plumber back out to sort out his mess and to check that he hadn't left a slow leak happening somewhere before I did anything else. And to make him aware of his liabilities should anything else go wrong/need checking.
Was he aware at the time there was a problem and what did he do to fix it?

JimmyTheWig

Missy_Spud wrote: »

hanging type sort of metal bars curve down and out almost chandelier like with the bulbs on the end of each bar.

Am I right in thinking, from this, that the bulbs aren't the lowest point of the light fitting? I.e. the metal bars come down and then curve up again?
If this is the case then the water will drop to the lowest point (the curved bit of metal) and will drip down from there so the electrical bit (i.e. the bulb) won't be getting wet.
Obviously there is electrics above the light fitting, so you've done the right thing in switching it off.

Even so, I think turning the downstairs lights off at the fuse box is a sensible thing to do over night.


But I do agree with elsien that the plumber should be fixing his mess!

Missy_Spud

hi, thanks for the replies, he was aware the ceiling was dripping i shouted arghhhhhhhhhhh there is water coming through my ceiling! he said it would stop after a minute, and apologized, i'm not sure if he realized it was coming through the light, pretty sure i said it was, but was on the phone to my mum telling her and sticking a load of towels down at the same time, its hard to not notice water coming from the light fitting though ,my ceilings are fairly high so the noise of drips onto my table below was noticeable, he did walk though my dining room a few times whilst everything was dripping.

yes the metal bars dip down and then curve back up, the water appeared to be coming from around the sides of the top of the light fitting and dripping straight down all over my dining table.

ok, I will switch the fuse box off tonight, am i best getting an electrician out tomorrow to have a look or should it dry out ok?

keystone

It'll dry out and he spilt more than a little bit by all accounts although a small amount of water goes an awfully long way. Not sure what other posters expect him to do in respect of "clearing up the mess". If the downstairs ceiling is wet there is no choice but to let it dry naturally unless its still leaking in which case nearly 12 hours later you would know all about it. You might like to invite him to pay for redecoration of the ceiling though. You need to turn off the downstairs lighting circuit rather than the whole consumer unit. There will be volts to the light whether the switch is off or not.

Cheers