Hi all,
(I know there are a lot of existing posts relating to water under floorboards, and I have searched, but none seem to match this problem exactly.)
There is a void under the floor of my parents' bungalow, in the next room to the bathroom. It was smelling very bad, kind of sulphurous, so some investigation took place.
The void is filled with water. The surface of the water is around 1 square foot is around 2 feet below the floorboards. A plumber came over and pumped 80 litres of water out of this void space. He tested the water and found it to be chlorinated. The water was around 1m deep. The plumber did some investigating, and eventually concluded that when someone is standing in the shower cubicle, the shower base flexes and causes a very slight drip from the shower waste. His judgement was that this tiny drip had, over a couple of years, caused this large body of water to collect.
However, 5 days later the smell had returned, and when we looked into the void the water had returned to roughly its previous level. There is absolutely no way in the world that that small drip from the shower waste had produced another 80 litres of water in 5 days, especially as the shower is only in use for maybe 10 minutes a day.
Now it gets weirder.
The water level changes daily. Sometimes rising by a few inches, sometimes dropping by a few inches. This makes it sound like it's groundwater, changing with the water table, but we are told that it is chlorinated, and on visual inspection it is very clear, not muddy or murky at all. So it can't be groundwater, right?
So then maybe its a burst water pipe? But why would that be raising and falling? Why would it seek any particular level at all? Wouldn't a burst pipe just keep filling until it flooded the house? We have tried running dishwasher and washing machine and watching the level, but these don't seem to affect it. We are all very much at a loss.
The insurance company have decided that the slow drip is the fault, and they won't take any further action until my parents have hired a plumber to disassemble the shower and fix the drip underneath. They have decided that this drip is the cause and will not be dissuaded, despite the huge amount of water that is gathering so quickly. This will be very expensive and will not fix the problem.
If anyone could hazard any kind of guess about what the source of the water might be, or the nature of the flow and changing levels, or suggest any further avenues of investigation, it would be very much appreciated.
(I know there are a lot of existing posts relating to water under floorboards, and I have searched, but none seem to match this problem exactly.)
There is a void under the floor of my parents' bungalow, in the next room to the bathroom. It was smelling very bad, kind of sulphurous, so some investigation took place.
The void is filled with water. The surface of the water is around 1 square foot is around 2 feet below the floorboards. A plumber came over and pumped 80 litres of water out of this void space. He tested the water and found it to be chlorinated. The water was around 1m deep. The plumber did some investigating, and eventually concluded that when someone is standing in the shower cubicle, the shower base flexes and causes a very slight drip from the shower waste. His judgement was that this tiny drip had, over a couple of years, caused this large body of water to collect.
However, 5 days later the smell had returned, and when we looked into the void the water had returned to roughly its previous level. There is absolutely no way in the world that that small drip from the shower waste had produced another 80 litres of water in 5 days, especially as the shower is only in use for maybe 10 minutes a day.
Now it gets weirder.
The water level changes daily. Sometimes rising by a few inches, sometimes dropping by a few inches. This makes it sound like it's groundwater, changing with the water table, but we are told that it is chlorinated, and on visual inspection it is very clear, not muddy or murky at all. So it can't be groundwater, right?
So then maybe its a burst water pipe? But why would that be raising and falling? Why would it seek any particular level at all? Wouldn't a burst pipe just keep filling until it flooded the house? We have tried running dishwasher and washing machine and watching the level, but these don't seem to affect it. We are all very much at a loss.
The insurance company have decided that the slow drip is the fault, and they won't take any further action until my parents have hired a plumber to disassemble the shower and fix the drip underneath. They have decided that this drip is the cause and will not be dissuaded, despite the huge amount of water that is gathering so quickly. This will be very expensive and will not fix the problem.
If anyone could hazard any kind of guess about what the source of the water might be, or the nature of the flow and changing levels, or suggest any further avenues of investigation, it would be very much appreciated.
