Burst water pipe damage

So my mother came back to her house yesterday only to discover water everywhere, I live three hours away so her neighbour found the leak in the attic,my mother was a week away so it may have been leaking for several days.

Turns out the leak point is exactly located on a stretch of pipe in the attic which the insulation company failed to cover when the attic was insulated around two years ago

Few questions if I may

The insulation company are coming out to remove the wet insulation from the attic, if it turns out that my mother's insurance either refuses to cover due to an improperly covered pipe ?, would the insulation company be liable?

Now a general question ?, one of my sisters who lives fairly close to my mother has hired out dehumidifiers etc and cleaned the place up ,she took plenty of photographs,she notified my mother's insurance company and the assessor is talking about visiting tomorrow, surely it's necessary to first employ a surveyor to inspect and put a cost estimate on repairs?

If a car is damaged,you get a panel beater to do a repair estimate before the insurance assessor pays a visit , perhaps it's not especially important how you sequence this however so maybe the assessor coming out first is not any real harm ?

Forgive my ignorance but what do you call the professional trades person who should be tasked with inspecting flood damage like this , is it a quantity surveyor who values costs or just a builder ?

Did the scope of the contract for the insulation job include for pipework insulation? Some of the attic insulation jobs will often just specify laying out quilt or other types of insulation along the plasterboard. Looking at the online job descriptions from a few of the bigger vendors, they all seem to limit the scope of the job to that alone, and would likely consider pipework insulation a separate job, albeit one that good attic insulation makes all the more important.

galway_blow_in said:

the assessor is talking about visiting tomorrow, surely it's necessary to first employ a surveyor to inspect and put a cost estimate on repairs?

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The assessor will have sufficient knowledge to review the damage and provide details of the works (including costs) to put it right.

A regular builder is likely what you need here. A quantity surveyor would review the job details and advise on the materials and costs required to complete that specification. A QS would generally be easier t justify on larger projects where the advice might be able to provide would result in savings greater than their own cost.

Recently, a attic water tank overflow caused extensive damage to my house.
I engaged a loss assessor who liaised with my insurance company. He was excellent.
He recommended a trustworthy clean up company and builder with whom he also liaised and gave me a highly detailed quote for works to be carried out by both.
Everything was covered by my insurance.

Leo said:

Did the scope of the contract for the insulation job include for pipework insulation? Some of the attic insulation jobs will often just specify laying out quilt or other types of insulation along the plasterboard. Looking at the online job descriptions from a few of the bigger vendors, they all seem to limit the scope of the job to that alone, and would likely consider pipework insulation a separate job, albeit one that good attic insulation makes all the more important.


The assessor will have sufficient knowledge to review the damage and provide details of the works (including costs) to put it right.

A regular builder is likely what you need here. A quantity surveyor would review the job details and advise on the materials and costs required to complete that specification. A QS would generally be easier t justify on larger projects where the advice might be able to provide would result in savings greater than their own cost.

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Hopefully this answers your question

Well it shows a picture, but not the details of the contract or who did what

If they installed that pipe insulation, then a poor job was done at that point assuming that's exactly how they left it. The insulation should not have been compressed though that in itself may not be enough to cause the burst pipe. Was that gap there as they left it?

Was water frozen in your mothers neighbourhood?.

Leo said:

Well it shows a picture, but not the details of the contract or who did what

If they installed that pipe insulation, then a poor job was done at that point assuming that's exactly how they left it. The insulation should not have been compressed though that in itself may not be enough to cause the burst pipe. Was that gap there as they left it?

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You hardly think someone interfered with the pipe insulation afterwards in order to make it exposed?

Yes ,the gap was as the insulation team left it a few years ago,while of course possible, it's a bit too much of a coincidence that the point where the copper pipe burst is exactly the few inches which were left uncovered

clinteastwood said:

Was water frozen in your mothers neighbourhood?.

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How would that be relevant?

galway_blow_in said:

You hardly think someone interfered with the pipe insulation afterwards in order to make it exposed?

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I don't know, a picture provides no evidence either way, hence I noted the assumption. It's not unusual for people to go poking around in the attic when searching for the source of a significant leak.

That's a pretty obvious issue and likely should have been spotted before the contractors left. The quilt insulation also looks to have been pulled back from the joist. Was that how they left it? If that's representative of the quality of the job done they shouldn't have been paid.

But surely the job was to insulate the attic for keeping heat in the house, not for preventing frozen pipes ?

JoeRoberts said:

But surely the job was to insulate the attic for keeping heat in the house, not for preventing frozen pipes ?

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Insulation of water pipes is a part of any attic insulation job ,I've owned three houses down the years and got all of them attic insulated,I didn't have to tell them to also wrap the pipes or the water tank ,they did it as a matter of course