glow worm boiler leaked, water damaged the floor and kitchen units.

[mele]

Hi I had a new central heating system installed a year and half ago , it wa serviced last thursday. Today water was gushing out and totally ruined a wooden floor and brand new 5k kitchen 1 year old. The company came out and said it was a maunfactures fault at glow worm and they will deal with it. Someone must be responsible for the failure of the boiler and the ensuing damage. Can I get compensation from glow worm on the damage to my kitchen? The boiler is combi 30ci plus. Thanks for any feedback.

[tarquinlinbin]

house insurance..? depends on the specific fault really. You could get detials of the fault and enquire directly with Glowowrm. Seems coincidental that it happened after a service though...mind you,we all make mistakes,,,to err is human..

[logized]

If it were me, I would want more info from the servicing company about the "Manufacturing fault" as it did not leak until a few days after they serviced it!. May also be worth enquiring with your house insurance company about how to handle the claim for damage - maybe they could deal with whoever was responsible and save you the hassle.

Dave

[Ed Sirett]

IIRC GW only have a 12 month guarantee. I presume this was a substantial leak to cause so much damage? Your house insurance may cover you. It is possible that the service company made a mistake during servicing or they agravated a latent weakness in the boiler (?). To put a liability claim in against the service company you would ideally need some sort of expert opinion on what went wrong, but IANAL and could easily be wrong. IANAL but you could start with a Small Claims Court action on the service company who will likely simply pass the matter to their insurers.

BTW I would not like this to ever happen to me but then I have insurance for this case.

[mele]

Thx for input guys , the house insurance does cover me for all the damage so its cool in that department ( 100 excess and lose no claims :( )The glow worm engineer is coming out I will try and get information from him.

[Andy Hall]

Check with your insurer and find out whether the no claims is not lost if either/both GlowWorm and installer admit liability and you recover the excess. Given the circumstances, I can see no reason for you to have any liability, although a loss adjuster may try to argue the cost down on the basis that the floor was not new.

You need to check the policy on that though, but don't be fobbed off. The loss adjuster may seem to be a friendly chap, but believe me, he is not your friend - he is there to reduce the insurance company's pay out, so be careful not to volunteer any more information that strictly requested.

.andy

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[Christian McArdle]

The whole thing sounds like a legal quagmire. After all, you don't actually have a contract with the manufacturer, apart from their voluntary guarantee which can exclude what it likes (and almost certainly excludes consequential damage).

That leaves the original installer (who are responsible for supply goods free of manufacturing defects) and the servicing company as well. Given that you only guarantee is that they will disagree over the cause, it would be seriously complicated to even know who to sue, let alone put together a watertight case.

Personally, I would forget about the entire thing and hope my insurance covers it.

Christian.