A Great Christmas Surprise

Travisthedog

Looked at the ceiling in the kids play room after breakfast and thought - "that paper up there looks a little blistery"

poked it stupidly and the water  just came pouring through.

Thatll be what's been tripping out electrics out for weeks then.

happy bloody Christmas. I put buckets down and carried on with the lunch and this evening I have been tearing out all the ikea book cases in that room as the walls are fucking saturated there's now water dripping out the kettle socket so we've lit some candles - tripped the mains RCD off and gone to bed in a massive huff 

I mean, Christmas feckin Day for gods sake

ThePrettyDamned

Shit.  

I hope it gets sorted and doesn't wreak too much havoc for you. What a horrible thing to happen on Christmas day (or any day, really). 

Bridgehouse

Ring your insurance chap. Get em on it straight away. Water and electrics - no. Just no.

Travisthedog

That's why I've tripped the RCD - no leccy down there now
 We do have home emergency I'll call them first thing

Bridgehouse

Travisthedog said:

That's why I've tripped the RCD - no leccy down there now
 We do have home emergency I'll call them first thing

Yeah good man. Must be horrible and I feel for you. It will get sorted and it will cost your excess but at least it will get sorted. It's good you noticed it really - it could have been pretty horrific in a few weeks time. 

We had something similar in the utility room this year - a failed seal on a bathroom outlet pipe. Luckily it missed most of the electrics but wrecked the ceiling

Travisthedog

Still dripping - phoned John Lewis at 01:30 still waiting for an engineer 8 hours later 

thomasross20

Sorry to hear this :(

spark240

If the juice Is off, just take the socket and sw plates off and let them dry out quicker, that's probably all they will do, I assume water hasn't got into the fuseboard ?

Travisthedog

@spark240 thanks mate 

just done that - just need engineer to fix the leak - properly 

trouble is it's in the central heating pipe so can't isolate the supply and switch it off

Bridgehouse

Travisthedog said:

@spark240 thanks mate 

just done that - just need engineer to fix the leak - properly 

trouble is it's in the central heating pipe so can't isolate the supply and switch it off

Ah now that is a bugger if it's the CH pipe.. Let's hope someone turns up soon!

hywelg

Travisthedog said:

@spark240 thanks mate 

just done that - just need engineer to fix the leak - properly 

trouble is it's in the central heating pipe so can't isolate the supply and switch it off

Yes you can. Turn off your incoming stopcock.

First off is it a combi style mains pressure system or an old fashioned header.tank type?

All the modern ones have an isolator valve somewhere. And a drain valve. Turn off the valve and if it's still leaking open the drain tap  to let some.out.

If it's a header tank it should have a stop cock on the inlet side. Turn that off and drain the systemto below the leak. If it doesn't have a stopcock put a piece of 2x1 across the top of the header tank and tie the float arm to it. Similarly drain to below the leak. 

Once youve isolated the ch system you can turn your mains water back on. 

Travisthedog

Engineer has been and fixed it - it was as I suspected where my father in law, - a plumber of some 40 years came to mend the hole I'd put in a pipe when screwing down a floorboard - we've all done it.

ive never seen any work that he's done survive more than a week before there's a catastrophic failure but I was desperate and it was a Saturday.

i pulled up the boards where I knew his repair was and sure enough - - a pool of water under the Compression fitting he's used, about 1/2" deep.

The engineer soon realised the useless bastard hadn't tightened one side of the compression fitting and it's been leaking like that probably since September.

i just punched a hole through the ceiling and let it all drain away.

We were supposed to be going to the in laws for lunch today, needless to say I declined as I was "repairing the damage from a  bodged plumbing fix"

Total Wanker

hywelg

I've a mate, also a plumber, who's about as good as that. Seems they get complacent. 

Strat_a_tat_tat

hywelg said:

I've a mate, also a plumber, who's about as good as that. Seems they get complacent. 

... or maybe it's a - not so cunning - way of making sure there's another call out in a few weeks' time.

Bridgehouse

I do like a good bodge job.


Oh that's right - no I don't 

ourmaninthenorth

Not tightening two bloody nuts....?? the secret of these fittings is in the name, this is beyond bodging, it's taking the piss.  I've worked with many blokes with 40+ years of experience...at being fookin hopeless at what they do. 

milamber

I do sympathise. Glad it's all fixed now.

We had a Christmas like that last year. Wife's mother died on the afternoon of Christmas Eve whilst we had her aunt staying with us who is already the world's most miserable person (think Father Ted's Father Stone only much, much worse). Managed somehow to get through to the 26th and took her home. Decided to have Christmas again on the 27th because it had been so crap. Prepared another dinner, bunged it all in the oven. Turned it on to find we had no gas. Spent the afternoon looking at a raw turkey whilst we waited for the engineer, ate some biscuits and went to bed.

Someone said we would look back on it and laugh. Not happened yet