Help! Underground water supply pipe nightmare

M22saver

Hi everybody,

A few weeks ago I posted a thread asking whether a problem I had was a leaking/faulty meter or a leaking supply pipe. It turns out to be the latter ... and I face a potential nightmare.

I live in a ground floor apartment and my water meter is outside on the pavement about 50m away from my property. UU say they will pay for someone to come out, dig 'a couple of small holes' (their words) to see if they can spot the leak - if they do they will fix it free of charge under the 'private leak repair scheme'. If not, I (or a special 'excavating' plumber I must get) face a horrendous prospect of trying to locate a leak on a 50m long supply pipe that crosses common land (the communal car park).

As I pay a monthly service charge to a management company, I would have thought that the buildings insurance that is included within that charge would cover circumstances like this ... but I am told that they only cover 'accidental damage' so that route is out.

I have no idea of the potential cost of this and have googled the problem to death - I seem to be the only one around WHO LIVES IN A FLAT and has this problem ... all other scenarios have been with people that live in houses (and have much shorter supply pipes with a straight/easy to locate route into their houses).

I guess the things I'm looking for here are:
1. Any reassurance whatsoever or 'actually, that happened to me/someone I know' type stories.
2. Anyone IN THE KNOW who can tell me that the buldings insurance thing is rubbish and that they really should cover the cost (a long shot I know but - hey - Homeserve dont offer supply pipe cover for flats as they say we pay a service charge and that should cover things!)

Look forward to hearing from anyone - you're a friendly bunch on here, much more positive than Yahoo Answers folk!

Cheers
M22saver

Cardew

My gut feeling is that your management company cannot wriggle out of the situation; their job is to manage. I cannot think that an individual can be held responsible on communal building.

Trying to be positive, the water company may put more effort into finding the leak than they say.

I suggest you contact OFWAT for advice on leaks on apartments - it must be a fairly common occurance.

The other path might be to contact CAB or try on www.venables.co.uk for some free legal advice.

Errata

Could it be that the weight of vehicles in the car park has damaged the pipe?
I had a leak years ago and the bloke from the water company found exactly where it was by using some kind of stethoscope, saved him digging umpteen speculative holes !
In any case, I agree it's a management company problem, not yours.

M22saver

Thanks to everyone who has replied so far.

One thing I forgot to mention is how all this came about. Two months ago, UU found that all the meters in my apartment block had been jumbled up. Until that date, lets say I had meter A and was billed accordingly. UU then found out that apartments in the block were not being billed for their own water use because of their mix-up.

After a series of tests to determine what meter (and therefore what supply pipe) belongs to each flat ... I was given the bad news 'Hey, you in fact have meter B and your actual supply pipe has a leak'!!

Do you think this would make a difference at all to this situation?

silvercar

If you do end up paying (and I posted on another thread why I think you shouldn't be) Get a few quotes, they can source the leak using CCTV and provided its a single leak in one spot it should "only" cost a couple of hundred pounds with a 10 year guarantee.

The previous owner of our house had this problem. A large contractor recommended by the water board quoted £1,000 to replace the whole pipe. A small company came out found the leak and fixed it for £300 - and that is London rates!

dvdhrh

I have this problem. Can you give me any telephone numbers for companies I could call to get quotes for replacing or fixing these pipes, thanks

silvercar wrote: »

If you do end up paying (and I posted on another thread why I think you shouldn't be) Get a few quotes, they can source the leak using CCTV and provided its a single leak in one spot it should "only" cost a couple of hundred pounds with a 10 year guarantee.

The previous owner of our house had this problem. A large contractor recommended by the water board quoted £1,000 to replace the whole pipe. A small company came out found the leak and fixed it for £300 - and that is London rates!

M22saver

I thought I'd give an update on this. The leak was fixed back in August but the legal/financial arguments rage on. A brief summary first ...

April '06 > move into flat. Told by United Utilities that my meter is XXX (name for illustrative purposes only) and I begin to pay between £17-21 pm for water.

May '07 > receive a call from a lady from UU. She says she is testing meter/pipe connections in the apartment block as a mix-up has been reported. After the test she apologises, says there has been a mix-up, my meter is actually YYY and that 'unfortunately it has a leak - you'd better call Leakline' which I prompltly did and they took weeks to begin their investigations.

Jun/Jul '07 > UU spend ages investigating source of leak. During this time, a lady from an upstairs flat responds to my request to find out who used to be assigned meter YYY. She says that she received a bill for £47,000 (!!!) back in Nov'06 - suggesting a massive leak somewhere. It took until May 2007 for UU to determine that the leaking pipe was incorrectly registered as this lady's meter!!

Aug '07 > Leak finally fixed, advised to take 2 meter readings 4 weeks apart and complete a 'burst allowance form'. Advised that, although I may get a bill for the actual repair (as UU themselves fixed it), the lost water would be written off, my actual monthly consumption be worked out and a refund given to me for any overpayments I've made since April 2006 (when I moved in).

Dec '07 > Heard no reply to my burst allowance claim form so decide to chase things up. Am finally told that not only will they not refund any money (what they call a 'backcharge') but that I am liable for all the lost water - circa £60,000!!!!! They weren't interested in anything else I went onto say and just told me to write into their Complaints Dept if I have a problem with what they told me.

What do you think about that then??

I've googled and googled and am yet to find anyone in a similar predicament - which kind of gives me hope that maybe nobody has been bankrupted following a water leak - but its pretty worrying at the moment as I'm sure you can imagine!

Cardew

I think ofwat should be contacted NOW.

If you were on meter XXX(as far as UU and you were concerned) I cannot see how they can hold you liable for meter YYY

Good luck.

HugoSP

Actually you want CC Water. Google it and contact the office from your area.

Speaking as someone who took on South West Water twice and won with their help, I can highly recommend them.

All water companies are corporate evils of the lowest order, and need to be challenged to be exposed as the bullies that they are.

benspray

I live in a ground floor apartment and my water meter is outside on the pavement about 50m away from my property. UU say they will pay for someone to come out, dig 'a couple of small holes' (their words) to see if they can spot the leak -

Dig a couple of small holes! I know in this day an age they have the equipment to do it kind of like a stethoscope! Could u imagine if they couldn't find it you'd have holes all over the place, that would really look attractive!!! We had a simular problem at our work where we found out we had a underground water leak an a really helpful team came and sorted all the problems out for us www.h2obuildingservices.co.uk. They hooked some equipment together and found the problem straight away.
As far as whos legally responsible and why your buildings insurance doesn't cover it that sounds crazy! what do we pay this for!!!! Hope it all works out for you!

bosshogg_2

dvdhrh wrote: »

I have this problem. Can you give me any telephone numbers for companies I could call to get quotes for replacing or fixing these pipes, thanks

We as a company based in bedfordshire can repair or replace your water supply pipe 01234 742300