Water leak under house

[Kaymo]

Hi,
Hope someone can help with some advice on this. In the thaw yesterday we had both the cold and hot water pipes to the kitchen burst - a Boxing day treat! Unfortunately the the break under the kitchen was in the only part of the house which cant be accessed through crawlspace underneath and has been tiled from above so all that I could do was cut the pipe at the closest point I could get to and blank the pipes. I wont be able to get into the area concerned to repair or run new pipes but I think that I can run new pipes from a different route.

My question is to do with the water that escaped under the house. Because I cant see into that area I dont know how much water was there or if it has drained away. The house is a 1905 construction and I can walk or stoop under most of it except for the area where the kitchen is, which I think was an extension or perhaps conversion from an old coal store or such like. I know very little about house construction and I am wondering is this water likely to cause any damage or will it just drain away into the soil or is it something I should be concerned about?

 

[digdilem]

If you can't see easily, ignore it. There's not much chance of damage (small one of washed away foundations I guess) but otherwise, any damage has already been caused and any attempt to find out more will result in further damage from what you say.

 

[mointainwalker]

if you have so much space down there, you really should think about insulating under the floor. 100 mm or 200 mm of fibre wool would make a very great difference to your comfort and bills.

Lots of threads on here. Look up underfloor insulation or similar and should give you lots of leads.

 

[TicklyT]

If you look at insulating your floors, look at re-routing pipework to the 'warm' side of the insulation to cut the chances of any repeat episodes.

 

[geraint]

Hi,
Hope someone can help with some advice on this. In the thaw yesterday we had both the cold and hot water pipes to the kitchen burst - a Boxing day treat! Unfortunately the the break under the kitchen was in the only part of the house which cant be accessed through crawlspace underneath and has been tiled from above so all that I could do was cut the pipe at the closest point I could get to and blank the pipes. I wont be able to get into the area concerned to repair or run new pipes but I think that I can run new pipes from a different route.

My question is to do with the water that escaped under the house. Because I cant see into that area I dont know how much water was there or if it has drained away. The house is a 1905 construction and I can walk or stoop under most of it except for the area where the kitchen is, which I think was an extension or perhaps conversion from an old coal store or such like. I know very little about house construction and I am wondering is this water likely to cause any damage or will it just drain away into the soil or is it something I should be concerned about?

nothing to worry about. it will soon disappear...

 

[digdilem]

Just another thought if the space is too tight to run pipe through.

If you can run a pull cord through a gap or under a floor, you can generally fit plastic pipe (speedfit). If there aren't too many obstructions, you can also fit pipe insulation onto it afterwards - if you get the right size it's pretty easy to fit where you can reach and push quite a long distance along the pipe.

 

[Kaymo]

Thanks all for comments, sorry for my late reply, was away for a few days and couldnt get internet access. Back now to start in at this tomorrow.

Hi digdilem,
I was looking at speedfit pipe today in b and q and it is very flexible so I am going to try and see if I can fix a rope to the old pipe and pull it through and if I can do that I will get some of this pipe and pull it back in the other direction. The other possiblity is that I might be able to break through access from under the kitchen sink and crawl in, if I can do that it wont be a problem at all.

Hi TicklyT/mointainwalker,
I can nearly stand up straight under most of the house so Insulation under the floor is on the agenda, as soon as I can get time to do it, but I wont be able to insulate under the kitchen where the pipe burst as thats the only part I cant get access to.

Hi geraint, thanks for the reassurance.

Thanks all for the help, i'll let you know how I get on!

 

[Kaymo]

Managed to get under the kitchen floor, had to remove the bottom of the sink unit but there was a trap door where the pipes went through and enough space underneath to crawl through. Initially tried to repair the copper pipe using compression fittings but it turned out to be split in 5+ different places so replaced the whole lot with plastic piping and speed fittings. Local B and Q had run out of pipe insulation so will have to go back down and fit that once they get it back in.

Thanks again to all for the help.