Underground water leak. (Long story)

alfiemorris

Homecare is not interested with this and refuse to insure her. Home Insurance are the same and could only help with any damage to property because of the leak. SWW are sticking to their stock answer " It's on your property, your problem" attitude. We have spoken to the Consumer council for water now and they said without prompting that SWW should take some or all responsibility because they not only knew about the likelihood of a leak but failed since 2015 to either do anything to fix it or notify the previous owner of the house. More letters and emails today.

martinsurrey

alfiemorris wrote: »

Homecare is not interested with this and refuse to insure her. Home Insurance are the same and could only help with any damage to property because of the leak. SWW are sticking to their stock answer " It's on your property, your problem" attitude. We have spoken to the Consumer council for water now and they said without prompting that SWW should take some or all responsibility because they not only knew about the likelihood of a leak but failed since 2015 to either do anything to fix it or notify the previous owner of the house. More letters and emails today.

A cubic meter every 2 hours is 500 liters per hour, 2 liters every 14 seconds, for 2 years that's 8.8million liters of water, that's 3.5 Olympic swimming pools.

The average UK house uses about 140 cubic meters per year, so this leak has used 63 years of normal usage in 2 years.

I think something is wrong, no way would that volume of leak not be noticeable over a small front garden...

pimento

Chanes wrote: »

1Cu mtr per two hours could be drained by the land without causing trouble? I would guess if it has been doing that since 2015 it could be draining freely and doing do without undermining the property (if it was subsiding you would have cracks appearing) Get the leak traced and fix it I understand your worry but it could be a simple fix once found.

Don't dwell on the previous owners until the leak is fixed and then think it through.

A cubic meter of water is a lot of water every two hours.

rtho782

Did the sellers tell you there was a meter? Usually the information form they fill out lists this.

I wouldn't buy a house with a meter - so I'd consider it significant if they lied and said there was no meter.

martinsurrey

rtho782 wrote: »

Did the sellers tell you there was a meter? Usually the information form they fill out lists this.

I wouldn't buy a house with a meter - so I'd consider it significant if they lied and said there was no meter.

You do know that when you buy a house, the water company can insist that the new occupier gets and uses a water meter, and the owner has no right of refusal.

firebird082

pimento wrote: »

A cubic meter of water is a lot of water every two hours.

Thames Water tried to tell us that our leak was 4 cubic metres/second - talk about scaremongering, I doubt the house would still have been standing with that going on for several years! It would certainly have been extremely obvious. I doubt they have an accurate idea at all.

Apoorwoman

We had a similar situation a few years back. Went out one morning, think concrete farm yard, and you could actually hear the water rushing underneath. Phoned WA and they sent out a couple of guys who dug a hole outside our gate, promptly filled it in again and said that it was not on their side and left. Phoned WA again and they said someone would be out. Four hours later, in torrential rain, two supermen arrived and started digging holes across our yard. At the third hole they found the problem, repaired it and filled in all the holes. They were most apologetic that they could not fully repair the yard and that it would be up to us to concrete over where they had dug.

We were not charged a penny for this work and we cannot fault the local WA. So worth ringing them first and be a bit persistent.

sparky130a

firebird082 wrote: »

Thames Water tried to tell us that our leak was 4 cubic metres/second - talk about scaremongering, I doubt the house would still have been standing with that going on for several years! It would certainly have been extremely obvious. I doubt they have an accurate idea at all.

:rotfl:

4 Cube per second? Seriously?

martinsurrey

firebird082 wrote: »

Thames Water tried to tell us that our leak was 4 cubic metres/second - talk about scaremongering, I doubt the house would still have been standing with that going on for several years! It would certainly have been extremely obvious. I doubt they have an accurate idea at all.

at 25mm internal bore, that would be a leak radius of 12.5mm if the pipe was completely broken

cross section of 0.00053125m2

4cum per secod means a flow speed of 7,529m per second or about 17 thousand miles per hour.

thats enough to cut steel (pretty much anything), you would CERTAINLY notice that one as it ripped your street to shreds...

LittleMax

We had this problem in a house we rented out. Was picked up by an unusually high water meter reading when tenants moved out. They think it had been leaking for around 6 months.

We claimed on our landlords insurance policy. We had to pay excess to a trace company who came out to find the leak. The bad news was they discovered it was somewhere under the house - so loss adjuster was called out. Cost of taking up wooden flooring and replacing would have exceeded the maximum we were covered for on the policy. So we were told to arrange our own repair and remedial works and provide quotes.

We found a contractor listed on Anglian Water website - he is based in Northampton, so if you are anywhere near there I can pass on his details. I would thoroughly recommend him.

He worked back from the meter toward house but they couldn't find the leak. He then did a re-route of pipework so old leaky pipe is still under the house, but water now runs along shiny new pipe to rejoin the supply at the internal stopcock. Thus avoiding taking up any flooring in the house.

If you are having to pay for this yourself don't even bother looking for the leak just reroute the supply from the meter. This is the most cost effective way to deal with the problem.

We had to confirm to Anglian Water when pipe was fixed and they reimbursed us for excess water consumption - it wasn't much for us as the property was empty so we were able to turn it off at the stopcock.

I hope that helps - let me know if you want any more info. It was very stressful time for us, and we were covered by insurance. So I really feel for your daughter. But get a good contractor and they will reassure you as they deal with this all the time.