Wet Room disaster

frogga

Hi All, 

We had a wet room fitted 2 years ago by, as it turns out, an incompetent builder. 

I thought it was always a bit smelly and foisty in there and we always thought it was stagnant water in the drains. Mr Frog noticed a loose tile on the seat in the shower, and when we lifted it in order to regrout it, the whole underneath was black and rotten. 

To cut a long story short, we have lifted ALL the tiles off the walls and floors. There was plasterboard on the walls and chipboard on the floors under the tiles. Both were black and rotten. The smell is horrendous. Under the soggy plasterboard and chipboard on the floor the concrete is wet. Like a swimming pool. Luckily it's downstairs.

My question is - would you contact the original builder and if so what would you say. I DO NOT want him in the house again so I don't want him to offer to put it right. I don't trust him now obviously. Should we/ would you be attempting to claim on his insurance?

My Mum says he should know just so that he realises  what he has done and doesn't fit any more. I was always really anxious that a wet room would leak, and now I am really concerned about having it re-done in case it happens again. It cost us thousands, and will cost thousands more now to re-do it.

What should I/ would you do?

Thanks in advance

Frogga

I cant post a reply for all the advice and I dont know why? It keeps saying 'Body 9 characters too short' ?? Anyway HUGE thanks for the advice, I will act on it xxxx

ThisIsWeird

Do you have Leg Prot included in your insurance policy? If so, call them up for guidance.

tacpot12

ThisIsWeird means legal expenses cover on your home insurance. If you have this, call the Legal Helpline provided by your insurers to get professional help. 

I tend to agree you don't want them back, but you need to get legal advice as to whether you have to give them the opportunity to repair the damage. You can't decide to claim of their insurance'; this is a decision for them as to whether they will make an insurance claim or not. 

I think the legal advice will be to first get an expert report that can be used in court to show what the builder did wrong. You have already mentioned a number of potential issues, e.g. ordinary plasterboard rather than a water-resistant boards and ordinary chipboard rather than moisture-resistant.  

Wetrooms usually need a waterproofing membrane between the water-resistant boards and tiles. Can you see if one was fitted? If not, this is a major red-flag as grout isn't waterproof; water will always pass through the grout and soak the wall/floor underneath. If there was a membrane fitted, it may have been fitted incorectly. You might need an expert in the specific membrane used to explain what was not done correctly. With an expert report, you might not even need to go to court, but you need to be careful of incuring court costs if the builder is a limited company and the company has no assets. 

I'm sorry this has happened to you. 

gwynlas

I previously had a wetroom.shower installed as part of a bathroom refit, from my experience I believe that it extremely difficult to get them retro fitted  to successfully drain,.Ours floooded until we worked out a way to contain the water in the shower area.
Yours souunds extremely badly fitted with the wrong plasterboard being used.

FreeBear

tacpot12 said:

ThisIsWeird means legal expenses cover on your home insurance. If you have this, call the Legal Helpline provided by your insurers to get professional help.

If you don't have legal expenses cover as part of your home insurance, some unions have a help line that can offer advice on more than just employment issues.

frogga

ThisIsWeird said:

Do you have Leg Prot included in your insurance policy? If so, call them up for guidance.

I will check on this, thank you for the advice x