Living room underwater - Two days after handover!

Hello everyone,

I am completely new to the forum and unfortunately a really unpleasant incident brought me here.
We have bought a house located in a new development area where a total of 160 houses were built by one company.

The finishing work was carried out by subcontractors, with whom we were still able to plan some things.
In the main bathroom, we decided to forgo a shower fitting and wanted to install it ourselves instead of buying the expensive one from the bathroom company.

So at the handover on Wednesday, of course the fitting was still missing and the pipes coming out of the wall were open but sealed.

So far, so good! When I first came back to the house yesterday after the handover, there was a large puddle in the living room on the ground floor and a big water stain on the ceiling around the cable intended for the dining table lamp.

I immediately called the construction company, who told me I had to contact the plumbing company. I did that and a technician came to find and fix the cause.

The problem was with the pipes in the shower in the bathroom above. The plug that was supposed to seal them was not tight and water ran behind the wall and found its way through the cable duct down into the living room.

It is fixed for now and no longer dripping, which is good. But the bad feeling remains and we don’t know how to deal with it.

Neither of us knows much about this and the plumber just says, “No problem, it will dry again in a few days. The wall is made of sand-lime brick, it absorbs the water, dries it out and everything will be as before, and the ceiling between the ground floor and the first floor is concrete, nothing will happen!”

For us, however, there is water in the intermediate ceiling that cannot dry properly. We are afraid of mold or other problems that could now occur in our brand new house. We already assume that the construction and plumbing companies will downplay it, but we would feel better if an independent building expert would take a look at it. Who would have to pay for this if necessary? Can the plumbing company be held responsible since they caused the error?

Thank you all in advance and I look forward to good advice!

Best regards and wishing you a foot-dry weekend

Jessica

Start professional building drying immediately. And document the damage well. I cannot predict whether you or the company will have to cover the costs.

And it's better to heat a degree warmer and ventilate well as soon as the professionally (!) conducted building drying is completed.

Good luck, if you tackle it right now, it will be manageable.

Maybe have it assessed by an expert right away, also because of the documentation. But start as soon as possible with the big [Bautrockner].

Thank you for the quick response! Getting a dehumidifier on the weekend is not that easy. I'll see if I can get one.

In any case, measure and document with a moisture meter (surface meter) at always the same points at regular intervals.

Certain floor coverings can swell, e.g. design/vinyl floors. Damage can occur there. Possibly document for insurance if you have anything there (water damage).

Turn on the heating in the rooms or rather set it a bit higher. A drying heater is also helpful and then ventilate the warm, humid air out. There are small temperature/moisture meters that you can place in the rooms. Available in large online retail with packs of 5 pieces or so.

Tiles already installed?

The company Sprint specializes in this and is available throughout Germany, unfortunately, we also had to use their services.