Leaking bathroom ceiling

concentratedbriana

A few days ago I noticed a brown stain appearing on the top of my upstairs bathroom ceiling.
I checked my loft where there are two water tanks just above the bathroom and couldn't find anything except for a rusted ballcock in one of the tanks but couldn't find any evidence of the tank overflowing (the stain wasn't underneath the tank).

Called the plumber and he replaced the ballcock but the issue still persists. At 3am I noticed there was clear water dripping from the ceiling intermittently. I checked the loft again and couldn't find anything that was causing the issue.

The plumber came out again and said it was a "boiler fault" and that when it "heats up too much" its causing stress to the pipe and told to wait a day to see if it changes...and then he left.

I'm lost as to what to do now, should I get another opinion from a different plumber?
I'm not confident that he knew exactly what was going on...

Any help would be appreciated.

grumbler

concentratedbriana wrote: »

The plumber came out again and said it was a "boiler fault" and that when it "heats up too much" its causing stress to the pipe and told to wait a day to see if it changes...and then he left.

I hope he didn't charge you for this bu11shit.

Is the loft boarded? Can you not see the ceiling under the insulation? What sort of ceiling is it?

concentratedbriana

grumbler wrote: »

I hope he didn't charge you for this bu11shit.

Is the loft boarded? Can you not see the ceiling under the insulation? What sort of ceiling is it?

No, he didn't charge.

The loft is partially boarded to access the tanks with insulation between the joists. Its difficult for me to lift up the insulation as I have asthma which triggers by being in the loft for more than 10 minutes. I think i'll have a friend come and lift the insulation.

According to my partner he barely spent any time in the loft saying there aren't any issues...

TELLIT01

It's possible that there is a leak from one of the cold water tanks if they are metal rather than plastic construction. The stain won't necessarily be directly below the leak if there is any kind of slope on the plasterboard.

concentratedbriana

TELLIT01 wrote: »

It's possible that there is a leak from one of the cold water tanks if they are metal rather than plastic construction. The stain won't necessarily be directly below the leak if there is any kind of slope on the plasterboard.

The tanks are plastic.

Whats interesting is that the stains and the dripping water appear on parts of the ceiling where its obvious that the ceiling has been repaired by the previous owner.

But in the 12 years we've been here, never had this issue before.

DonnySaver

Do you get a lot of condensation in your loft? At this time of year it could easily just be condensation dripping off your roof liner - we've had this before.

concentratedbriana

DonnySaver wrote: »

Do you get a lot of condensation in your loft? At this time of year it could easily just be condensation dripping off your roof liner - we've had this before.

In the last 12 years we've never had this issue.
I've taken into account the copper pipes sweating but why would they do that all of a sudden

FreeBear

concentratedbriana wrote: »

I've taken into account the copper pipes sweating but why would they do that all of a sudden

If you have any pipes in the loft in the area of the staining & suspect leak, it could be the pipes at fault. A few years back, got called on to fix a leak in a friend's loft. One of the copper pipes up there had corroded through and was full of pinprick holes. House was only around 15 years old at the time...

DonnySaver

Our house was only about 10 years old when we had 2 sections of pipe that just started leaking due to pinprick holes appearing in the copper pipe .

concentratedbriana

grumbler wrote: »

I hope he didn't charge you for this bu11shit.

Is the loft boarded? Can you not see the ceiling under the insulation? What sort of ceiling is it?

FreeBear wrote: »

If you have any pipes in the loft in the area of the staining & suspect leak, it could be the pipes at fault. A few years back, got called on to fix a leak in a friend's loft. One of the copper pipes up there had corroded through and was full of pinprick holes. House was only around 15 years old at the time...

Welp, the leaking stopped and it seems when I turn on my water heater the water starts dripping again!!

grumbler

What water heater? Immersion electric heater in your cylinder?
If so, the water expands a little in the cylinder and the level in the tank can increase, but the change will be so small that is extremely unlikely to cause any leakage.


However, if some pipe or connection is faulty I can imagine that when hot water fills the pipe the leakage can increase.