Very slow leak of water - your advice welcomed!

ahrimaniac

Hello

Let me start off by saying I'm as thick as mince when it comes to DIY. Don't judge me, I do try my best. I might get the terms wrong but hopefully I'll get my point across.

We moved into our current house three years ago and there was a slow leak in the bathroom, causing water damage. We discovered this when we lifted the hallway carpet and found a damp patch. We found an excellent plumber who came out, replaced all the damaged parts, fixed the piping, dried the room out and did a cracking job with the new bathroom. Never had a problem for three years.

This Sunday past I stepped on the hallway carpet (we are a bungalow) and it was wet in a very small, concentrated spot. I pulled it up and lo and behold, a big sodden patch on the chipboard in exactly the same place as before, plus another one a little further away.

Picture here of the first patch. Picture here of the second patch.

You can see the previous patch that had dried out and the new one - the pen markings are where I've marked out the size to see how fast it is growing.

We reported it to our plumber who to his credit came out straight away (no charge) and tested all the taps and whatnot and discovered a tiny drip from our waste pipe AND the overflow 'cap' on the bath was loose, meaning everytime we had a bath water may have been getting over the side. He remedied both, no charge.

We have been taking baths daily instead of showering for the last few weeks as our shower needs replacing which he's coming to do mid July.

However, the patch is very slowly getting bigger.

My other half thinks that if the floor underneath has sustained a fair bit of water that even though the source of the leak has been fixed, it'll still be absorbing into the chipboard and will eventually slow down. It's growing 'out' by about half a cm a day.

My gut feeling is that we need to get this chipboard up and the pipes looking at, but (and this is silly, I know) I don't know how best to go about it - do I get the plumber, or Trace and Access people to find a leak, or a floor guy? We have insurance but it doesn't cover Trace and Access - pah.

I'm more worried that we're going to have to rip up all the tiles in the bathroom to find the leak but who knows?

Anyone got the vaguest idea of what I could reasonably expect to pay in all of this?

I'll come back and answer any questions that I haven't covered. Our plumber is away at the moment hence not asking him. He's back next week so if it can wait then fine, but I don't know.

Thoughts welcomed!