Pub converted to flats - gas/water for neighbours run through mine!

[Lower]

Have you had any contact with the freeholders? Who is currently repairing the leak and dealing with the consequential damage.

It sounds as if your lease is clear in that it should be the freeholders paying for that. I would start down that route and then get into discussion on the quality of the installation and your concerns.

Oh and random documents relating to gas and water installs might steer you in the right direction of how it should be done, but don't expect them to be of any more use to you than that.

 

[skyblues]

Yes we have contacted the freeholders. The contractor came round on the day of the flood and turned off the feed for the pipe that was leaking, using the stopcock in the footway. He has now disappeared.
The Freeholder's secretary told us on Friday that the pipe was our problem. She has contacted us again today to admit that she was mistaken.
To be honest I don't want to live in a flat where someone else's cold water feed can completely flood my flat. I'm often away for weeks at a time and it was pure luck that I was home when the flood occurred. If it had been a week earlier there would have been about 3000 litres in my bedroom and bathroom judging by how fast it was coming out. As the flat being fed was unoccupied I doubt anyone would have noticed. I keep a very valuable collection of football programs (LFC) from the 70s to 90s in that room, including many that are worth £20+. They have great sentimental value too and would have been ruined if I hadn't been home, as well as a lifetime of photographs that I keep there too
The fact that the water has failed doesn't inspire me with confidence regarding the gas and electricity installation - as I said earlier there is exposed wiring in the attic that would be easy to put one's hand on. I feel that this block is a potential deathtrap. I will inform building control of my concerns and then put my flat up for sale.

 

[endecotp]

To be honest I don't want to live in a flat where someone else's cold water feed can completely flood my flat.

Don't live in a flat then.

It does sound like there are some non-compliant issues with the gas, but the arrangement with the water pipes is more or less the same as every flat I've ever lived in. (I guess purpose-built modern flats might be at less risk.). Be grateful it was clean water, not sewerage.

 

[Mottie]

Don't live in a flat then....

Bit harsh. Some people don't have a lot of choice on where they live. My kids certainly couldn't afford to buy or rent a whole house to themselves.

 

[endecotp]

Bit harsh. Some people don't have a lot of choice on where they live. My kids certainly couldn't afford to buy or rent a whole house to themselves.

I live in a flat too. And I'm sure one day I'll get flooded. Doesn't every flat-dweller get flooded eventually?
Here the previous owner did, with sewage, and had to replace most of the floors and replaster the walls up to about 1m above floor level, in most of the rooms.
Skyblues says he doesn't want to live in a flat where there's a risk that his collection of football programmes might get damaged in a flood. I fear that's unrealistic.

 

[chris1982]

Perhaps in the top floor flat?

 

[endecotp]

Perhaps in the top floor flat?

With a roof full of huge tanks above you? And maybe the drainage from a valley roof?

 

[skyblues]

Don't live in a flat then.

It does sound like there are some non-compliant issues with the gas, but the arrangement with the water pipes is more or less the same as every flat I've ever lived in. (I guess purpose-built modern flats might be at less risk.). Be grateful it was clean water, not sewerage.

Given that the flats are about a year old having a bad flood isn't to be expected. I've lived in flats for 30 years - one ex council and one ex housing association - and never been flooded. The issue here is that the "flats" being fed via mine aren't really flats at all, they are single storey outbuildings converted into dwellings and should have been fed from the street. There are no dwellings either above or below either of my bedrooms, yet they still managed to be flooded by a leak from another flat's water pipe.

Anyway the gas safe guys have been and gone. The gas piping through my flat feeding the adjacent flat isn't compliant and will have to be ducted and vented. Thanks for all the support and advice.

 

[chris1982]

With a roof full of huge tanks above you? And maybe the drainage from a valley roof?

Ah right. I didn't think about tanks in the loft. But I lived for a few years in London in a flat below a flat roof (btw is that why it's called a flat?), and when the one day snow settled on the roof, water was leaking through virtually everywhere! So I know what you mean...

 

[endecotp]

one day snow settled on the roof, water was leaking through virtually everywhere!

A friend had something similar, but the ending was worse; when the snow melted in their valley roof it was dripping through the ceiling so he went up on the roof to find the rainwater drain in the valley clogged with leaves. He unblocked it and the water gurgled down the drain in a satisfying swirly way - job done! Until the following morning on his way out, he found the owners of the shop on the ground floor mopping up their flooded shop. Apparently the long gurgle of water that he had unleashed was too much for the drains and it had overflowed through their toilet.....