Burst pipes you're on your own until Wednesday

Pacing Mule

Got home from an overnight stay in the parents house to find burst pipes in my own place

Phoned One Directs line and got put through to a call centre in the UK - The only service open from them is to take your details and get someone to call back on Wednesday. Water cascading out of the walls in the utility room, water in general to the rest of house off and the tank empty means I can't really wait until Wedneday for them to reopen. Asked them would we be covered to call someone ourself rather than wait until Wed and they said they could not say yes or no to that as they are only an out of hours line.

Emergency line me b$%^$X

Anyway could one of the good folk of this forum advise me on what happens from here. Are they likely to start saying we should have waited for an assessor etc.

Victor

Get a plumber now? You are obliged to minimise your losses.

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=1320

dotsman

As Victor said. It's up to you to organise the repairs and should do so asap, both for your own sake, and due to insurance obligation to prevent any further damage.

Just make sure to photograph everything before it's repaired.

Pacing Mule

We had a local handyman come in yesterday evening. Stuff of nightmares, after locating and fixing one leak and turning back on the mains water we found that water was still draining from tank which led to finding a second burst pipe. Took close on 3 hours to sort in the end. Either way the pipes are repaired which was the immediate concern but the damage to the wall / skirting and floor etc aren't touched.

This guy isn't a fully registered plumber though so does this cause me issues with the insurance co? He sorted the burst pipes out for €150 which would have been a hell of a lot cheaper than an emergency callout from a plumber on a bank holiday. I've saved the insurance co. money but will I end up being penalised for it.

pow wow

Usually there'll be something in the policy about you being allowed to take emergency action without your insurer's consent to minimise the losses (i.e cracking open the wall and fixing the pipe). The same thing happened in my house yesterday and we have a clause that effectively says this. It make sense really as if you'd let the entire house float while you waited to get hold of them their loss would probably be a lot more costly.

Check the excess on your policy as it might well be above 150 (and you may also have a specific higher excess for escape of water claims) in which case you may not get much back. The specifics of repairing any damaged walls etc. is usually under a clause called 'trace and access'. Once the emergency action has been taken, as in the leak has been remedied, you need their consent to go any further with repairs to walls etc.