Insurance claim - Water leak advice

willywinki26

So last Thursday we had a water leak in the bathroom.

The old bathroom had been stripped out and when the water was turned back on, one the old pipes sprung a leak. When the stop !!!! was turned on the handle completely sheared off so my husband couldn't isolate the water there. He went to outside mains stop !!!!, but it needs a key which was missing, again we'd never had to do this so wasn't aware. This left my husband with water pouring out upstairs with two small children in the house and no way of getting the water turned off until i got hold of a plumber to go as i was at work. The water was running for aprox 1 hour and we have high water pressure.

We got the stop !!!! replaced and that night we had to take out the hallway/stairs, and dining room carpet (directly under the bathroom). They were completely water logged and the water seeping from them was causing more damage. The ceiling in the dining room directly under the bathroom came down also.

I contacted the insurance company the next morning, who said that as it was just plaster board and carpets they might not need a loss adjuster to come out. Vericlaim contacted me later on Friday saying we needed to get the carpets cleaned first. I informed them they were out of the house and we'd had to cut them to get out. There was no way I was leaving them down with water pouring out of them. Perfectly reasonable in my opinion. I have video foot and photo's of just how wet they were.

I've obtained quotes for the replacement carpets for dining room and hallway/stairs over the weekend. The original carpets were both Axminster, which i've been informed start ~ £60/m2.
I got quotes on something around £25/m2. Am i making a mistake here? The carpet company said the loss assessors would need a "like for like" quote, should i get one of those so they can see that actually they are saving quite a bit of cash?

The plastering is quite straight forward.

A few further issues have arisen over the weekend since I contacted the insurance company on Friday.

I ) It has become apparent that the plasterboard walls in the bathroom got soaked and even after being also dry they now feel soft in lots of places. I don't think these would be strong enough to hold tiles now. The plaster board will need to be replaced which should be covered?

ii) The wall between the hallway and dining room took the brunt of the water that didn't come through the dining room ceiling. You could see the walls were wet at the time, but over the weekend the wallpaper, which was old and curling a bit at the edges, started to delaminate. Our eldest son has asthma, one of the riggers is damp air/mould etc so i don't take any risks and we pulled off the wallpaper which was damp and loose/coming away. This affected 2 walls in the dining room, and a wall and ceiling in the hallway. I assume we would also claim re-decoration of these rooms? The entire hallway is wallpapered, so it's not like we could just get that one wall decorated, as such we'd be able to claim for decoration of the entire hallway, is that right? Same for the dining room? Should we be claiming for stripping of all remaining wallpaper and then redecoration?

In terms of disposal, the cost of a skip would be covered (~£90)? Carpet companies want £200 to take away the wet stuff.

Thanks

Blibble

Regarding the carpet, did you keep any samples of the old carpet for review, as there insurer's contractor will likely want to do a like-for-like quote for replacement?

Regarding the building works, your buildings' insurer will likely appoint a contractor to assess if the plasterboard is sound or not. Check with the insurer how much wallpaper would be covered, however they will likely ask you to get an independent quote to forward that on for their review.

willywinki26

Blibble, yes we've kept all the carpet.

When you say check how much wallpaper is covered, surely they would re-do the whole room? It's paper from the 90's, i'm sure it's still available! :rotfl:

Mr.Generous

Id be interested to know what the insurance say, like for like is impossible, but then you'll be getting new carpets and fresh decorating when it was 20+ years old. A bit like crashing a Ford Escort and getting a new Focus, but I don't suppose there is any other way with home insurance.

Someone must have had a similar experience, my dad did years ago but I don't know how he got on. Going to be a load of hassle that's for sure.

willywinki26

So the loss adjuster has been this morning. He seemed quite reasonable and didn't mention anything about the place having very old decoration or that being a problem. That's just life i guess, there's nothing in our policy which limits repairs etc by age/date installed. He is recommending the following

i) specialist firm to come in and dry out the house
ii) fungicide treatment to prevent mold growth in the future
iii) replacement lino bathroom. Replacement carpets in dining room and HSL
iv) redecoration to dining room and HSL
v) replace plasterboard in dining room ceiling and skim across full ceiling

He's going to get a tiler to assess if the plasterboard in the bathroom needs replacement

A carpet company will take some samples away to test the carpet to see if it is wool. Apparently it singes if it's wool, and melts if PP. I know it's wool but i'll entertain them.

He asked about whether we wanted them to manage the works, which is where i'm a bit stuck on what to do. The plan next year was to remodel the lay out downstairs which would impact both the hall and dining room. We planned on relocating a downstairs wc into a small passage from hall to kitchen. Then knock a double doorway through from the hall into the dining room, with the dining room and kitchen being opened up. In theory we could push on and move the toilet as it's not a massive job. The new doorway would mean a lintel being put in but again, it's not a huge task and we have funds put aside for both these jobs.

I like the idea of them managing the trades, but do you think they'd take issue with us making these changes first? It seems pointless decorating and then making a mess next year when we knock through. If they were ok with it we'd get them to manage all the works but just ask for cash payment for the dining room flooring so we put the same in the kitchen/diner once opened up.

Blibble

The test for carpet is exactly as you've described, although I've never heard of samples being taken away. Normally they just burn a corner of the sample with a cigarette lighter for the burn test on site?

If you're going to get the property redecorated anyway, could you not either take a cash settlement or pay any upgrade fees directly to the contractors? They've probably priced up a like-for-like scope of works based on the current layout of the property, so amending this layout before repairs are complete, and therefore amending the measurements of the property, might mean that there's a shortfall which you'd be required to make up.