I got a call from Mandy today saying that the tap under the sink was leaking. She had tried to turn the water off, but nothing was happening.
My first though was "Have you phoned a plumber, or the estate agents?", to which she said "I´ve phoned a plumber". I knew that we would get some sort of free coverage/service from the estate agents so I said I would ring them.
The estate agents said I should give British Gas a ring and they would organise a plumber. So I gave Mandy a quick ring to get her to cancel the other plumber (who was going to charge us £100). The phone rang for a while and then this little voice on the other end said "Hello". The pipe had come apart completely and water was gushing out at full speed. Needless to say, water was everywhere and Mandy was in a state of total panic.
I can´t fault the estate agents (Timothy A Brown) on their service as they phoned me to make sure I had called British Gas, and said that a representative from their office was on their way down there.
By the time I got home the kitchen was ankle deep in water, and every towel we owned had been used in trying to stop it spreading into the lounge. The estate agent had managed to turn off the water so there was no more coming out, even better, before he left and had organised a clean up crew and a plumber to come around. This was a little embarrassing as the plumber I had organised from British Gas came around while the estate agent plumber was there. Still, they were both ok about it so it wasn't too bad.
The reason for the leak? Well we have a mixer tap on the kitchen sink, and it was beginning to become loose so that every time we moved it about it was moving the pipes underneath. This moving was actually unscrewing the pipes, and it was just on this occasion that the pipe happened to come apart. All the plumbler did was to replace the plastic fittings with copper ones and tighten up the tap.
By 8PM we had sorted out most of the mess and were sat down eating, while the towels where in the wash.