is that a river beneath the kitchen floor?

Your Claim was contacted by the letting agent for a large residential 5 bedroom property in a high net worth area of Colchester. On arrival, we met with a local plumber who was investigating an escape of water. With the with use of an endoscope, he was able to identify a failure in the hot water feed from the combination boiler to the hot tap.

His video footage showed what can only be described as a free-flowing stream under the kitchen floor. Steam was surfacing up through the floor and kitchen units.

One of the tenants operated a physiotherapy business from the property, so moving out was not an option for them during the strip out and reinstatement. Taking their needs into consideration, we programmed the works in phases to minimise disruption while we stripped the kitchen, the utility room and the downstairs cloakroom and commenced structural drying.

We subsequently discovered that several of the load bearing floor joists were beyond repair. The structural load bearing wall running through the centre of the property had to be propped up using high strength concrete blocks before the floor joists could be removed and reinstated.

Although only the base units of the kitchen were damaged, we negotiated an entirely new kitchen, complete with worktops and composite sink, at no extra cost to the landlord, who was given weekly updates on progress and provided with a choice of materials. The letting agent benefited from minimal involvement in the remedial works with maximum visibility and complete control over the repair process.