Home Maintainance - Whats Covered

[puternut]

Had a minor(ish) problem here at about 15:00 today where my OH was using the bathroom sink and water started spurting out of the hot water supply pipe at a rate of knots.

Called our insurers where we have a boiler, plumbing and drains repair service and they noted this an emergency call as I have to turn off the whole water system as we have no roof storage tank and everything is straight off the mains. So no drinking water, no W.C.s, no heating etc etc.

After a call at about 19:30 we were called to say the fitter would be here at about 21:15. He duly arrived and found the problem was that the flexible pipe linking the end of the copper to the tap had perished. The installer (not me - about 10 years ago) had also had the foresight to fit a shut-off valve at the joint.

The fitter then stated that this flexible pipe was part of the tap it wasn't covered by insurance so he couldn't replace it - unless we wanted to pay.

Would you consider this pipe to be covered or am I being tight in getting the insurance to pay for its renewal?

I will be contacting the insurance company after the holiday on a couple of other matters but wonder if I might be able to contest his (the fitters) 'advice'.

[douglas9401]

From your description the tap could be isolated from the main via this flex and valve so I'd see anything after the shut-off as 'the tap'.
However, insurance companies never got rich by admitting liability.
In any event it's a plumbing fault, the chiselling knobs.

[buildersmate]

Some taps come with 'flexible ends' already sweated on - in either copper or (as in your case) some other material, to enable the end of the tap unit to be fitted onto the 'supply' pipe (which is often copper, though these days not always). Equally, taps terminating in only a threaded end are often separately fitted with a short length of flexy pipe on installation by the fitter to make the whole lineing-up of the installation easier.

So your installation could be either, and (I suppose the insurance company) in the former case will argue you are not covered by insurance and in the latter case you are.

If you can crane your head in under there, you should be able to see whether there is a compression joint (with a pair of nuts) between tap and flexible pipe or not - just where the tap emerges from the underside of the basin (I'm not talking about the big nut which tightens the whole tap assembly onto the basin - that will always be there).