Water leakage after clearing blocked toilet

mrcheez

So we had a toilet blockage on the first floor of our house and I manage to unclog it after a few minutes with the plunger.

Pressed the flusher and then started hearing water running through the walls behind the toilet!

I ran downstairs and saw some water seeping down the walls, and now there's a lovely 1x1m sized water stain on the ceiling, so I assume there's a pool of water on the first floor under the floorboards.

Thankfully it only happens when the toilet is flushed.


So my questions are:
- Does it sound like a pipe burst during the toilet unblocking? Is this a frequent occurrence?!?

- I may need to get home insurance involved, should I contact them first, or get the plumber over to evaluate the situation? (do insurers generally have specific plumbers they want customers to use)?

seamus

Probably a seal popped or something during the unblocking, quite unlikely you'd manage to crack a pipe, but they could certainly separate at the joins if you were vigourous enough with the plunger.

No harm to get a plumber out to quote so you know what you're looking at, but the insurance will get their own assessor out to price it up anyway. If they think your plumber is overestimating they'll send out their own to do the work.

We redid our bathroom this year and the investigative work and refitting some of the plumbing worked out surprisingly expensive because it's rarely easy to get at. Don't be surprised if they need to pull out all the plasterwork - which will then need to be refitted and repainted.

mrcheez

Cheers, so call out the plumber first before checking with the insurance?

FrancieBrady

I did similar to a rear exit (straight out pipe not turned to the floor if that makes sense) toilet.
The seal of the plastic pipe somehow rolled back meaning water gushed out when you flushed.
Fixed it by grabbing pipe on both sides and sliding the pipe gently enough, back and forth until the flap of the seal corrected itself.

mrcheez

Also, reckon I should not mention using the plunger when dealing with the insurance, and instead just say "there is a leak, I don't know why" ?