New house, burst pipe

moneyistooshorttomention

Personally - sitting here astonished at a removal company dealing with the washing machine. It didn't occur to me that they would do so - and I landed up paying someone to come round and do it for me when I moved here (think it was about £40?).

Don't know if this is a standard thing for removal companies to do or no?

Thankfully I did know they were supposed to put my bed together for me - and was obviously standing there waiting for them to do so.

But I don't think one can charge a removal company for a pipe that's not their fault (ie because it's worn). That is the previous owners fault - but it is something they may genuinely not have been aware of.

*******

Re stopcocks - they can indeed be in odd places. The one in current house was under the sink - but some "expletive deleted" of a previous bodger owner had it hidden behind the panel at back of kitchen sink cupboard and one of my workmen had to bust their way through to it literally and I guess I can only be thankful it didn't take that long for him to realise what the bodger had done.

A friend of mine that also moved here spent quite some time finding theirs - as it was down in the cellar and up near the ceiling there:eek:

Smodlet

Deannatrois, I once lived in a house with two stopcocks, mm-hm, yeah. We were kind of a big deal back then, multiple stopcock owners. :rotfl: One was in a cupboard near the back door, not right under the sink and the other was in the downstairs loo. Novel. HTH.

ProDave

The obvious thing when buying as house is to go and visit before completion and ask the vendor to show you things like where is the stopcock?

AnotherJoe

I have a neat little gizmo that uses the pressure of the water to switch the water off. So you just have a switch, looks like a light switch except it's red and no electricity involved. Cost about £30 and it was fitted when my kitchen was redone.

The issues with stop cocks is apart from the fact that people don't know where they are, they can sieze up if not used and the advice to close /open it every 6 months to prevent this happening is unlikely to be acted on since people forget. Also they are usually in an inconvenient place whereas a switch like the one I mentioned can be placed in an accessible position.

moneyistooshorttomention

ProDave wrote: »

The obvious thing when buying as house is to go and visit before completion and ask the vendor to show you things like where is the stopcock?

It never occurs to you to ask a vendor things like that - because everyone knows where they are due to be. So one assumes that is the case.

Since moving here - I shan't be assuming anything ever again - if I have another move (unless it's back to my home area).

I'll ask about everything that is my norm - to check whether that's how things are or no.

AnotherJoe

I think that's more likely to be the immersion fuse or similar. I wouldn't expect the pressure switch to be near the immersion heater as it needs to be really close to the stop (male chicken).

I've had a look at my gizmo switch and it says "surestop" on it ... here it is http://surestop.co.uk/owners/

Also I see with some amusement it's blue (makes sense) I would have bet big money it was red ! Shows how unobservant I am.

lincroft1710

The stopcock in my house is behind an accessible wooden panel in the study.

Why in the study? Well the study originally was the kitchen, but OH wanted a bigger kitchen so we converted the "extension room" which was larger into the kitchen.

Davesnave

lincroft1710 wrote: »

The stopcock in my house is behind an accessible wooden panel in the study.

Why in the study? Well the study originally was the kitchen, but OH wanted a bigger kitchen so we converted the "extension room" which was larger into the kitchen.

And ours is inside an IKEA Pax wardrobe in the dressing room, just behind my shirts.

That was originally the garage + utility, where the incoming water was split between one system for the barns & fields and another one for the house. It's desirable to shut off and drain the external system when heavy frosts are forecast.

ConsumerWarrior

ska_lover wrote: »

Do you phone an electrician when you need a light bulb changing?

I dont think you need to be a plumber or an electrician to install a washing machine, just someone with savvy and good work ethics?

AnotherJoe

Did you look at the date of this post ConsumerProfile ?