design fault with tap causes flood...help

redshed

I have joined this forum as Ihope someone out there may be able to help me. About 18 mths ago we bought bathroom stuff from a well known company and had it fitted (not by the company as they don t offer that service) The tap was a waterfall tap and if it wasnt closed properly it would run back on itself and flood the bathroom whichthen ran down the walls in the living room. I had a lot of other issues at the time so it took a long while for me to get round to sorting it out. After many emails etc and 3 floods the company replaced the tap and the sink unit but wouldn t change the design of the tap. I paid for the tap to be taken out andthe new one fitted and paid for the damage to be put right. We have the same problem with the new tap and last week water flooded through into the living room again and destroyed my laptop. I have sent a video of the tap to the company and they have replied saying.(I have copied and opasted the reply).................................................................................

. I am very sorry to learn you are having problems with your tap. As my colleague has advised, the video you have kindly supplied has been reviewed by our Technical Specialist, who has advised that the tap needs to be fully open to work properly. As the design is a waterfall tap it needs to have enough pressure to go down the spout and into the basin. If the tap is not turned on fully there will not be enough pressure, and any water will drip under the spout and onto the basin. We have also checked with the supplier who have confirmed there is no design fault.

Due to these reasons we are unable to exchange or refund the tap, and unfortunately would not look to pay the costs involved to repair the damage which has been caused to your property.

I am sorry that on this occasion we are unable to assist you further.
..................................

HELP

k3lvc

Seems simple enough to me - either a design fault that can be overcome by the user or sheer user error - neither of which I'd expect to be covered by the company after 18 months and 3 floods

The addition of the destroyed laptop just caps it all for me :rotfl:

As a free Xmas gift I offer a lesson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDJ_YuWgoKc

tomtontom

Their explanation makes sense to me - a waterfall tap will run back on itself if not fully off. Are you saying it will not turn off, or that someone in the house is failing to turn it off correctly?

redshed

the tap will fully shut off but if it isnt it doesnt run into the bowl it runs back along the underside of the tap and onto the flat unit then onto the floor. A normal tap would just run into the bowl/sink.

redshed

k3lvc -this really isnt useful......I was genuinely asking for advice...

tomtontom

redshed wrote: »

the tap will fully shut off but if it isnt it doesnt run into the bowl it runs back along the underside of the tap and onto the flat unit then onto the floor. A normal tap would just run into the bowl/sink.

You have two options - replace the tap with a normal one, or turn the tap off properly. I can't see how the retailer is at fault here?

mattyprice4004

My advice would be to fully turn the tap off when not in use, and problem doesn't happen.

redshed

It actually is incredibly easy not to turn it off properly and it is hard to see when it runs back on the underside of the tap. I will be changing it without a doubt as I cannot run the risk of the damage again . However I do not think it should be my responsibility as it i definately a flaw in the design.

redshed

I suppose a way of explaining this would be
if you were to turn a normal tap to off it would either shut off or if you hadnt turned it fully you would see the dribble and it would dribble into the sink. With this waterfall tap if you dont quite press it down fully you dont see a dribble because it runs back along the underside of the tap and it does not dribble into the sink

Poppie68

3 floods enough for it to flood the bathroom and run down the walls of the living room... That's a lot of water yet the user can't tell the tap hasn't been correctly turned off!....how did it manage to ruin a laptop ?

Zandoni

If the tap does this when its only partially open then I would say it's a very poor design, my son has similar taps in his bathroom and he hasn't experienced any problems.

Presumably you have tried increasing the pressure to the taps?