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[betweenrows]

Hello.  I’m hoping someone can offer some advice here.

We live in a small block of 6 units in Sydney.  Our bathtub taps had a minor drip and we were going to call Sydney Water out to fix them for free under their WaterFix program.  However, last week our neighbour downstairs contacted strata because there was a drop of water “every 4 seconds” from the pipe that he apparently has in his bathroom which is directly under our bathtub.  Strata called plumbers out, who inspected his unit and then requested to come in and inspect ours, however we were not home (it was mid-morning on a week day and we knew nothing about it).

That night we received an email regarding the issue, and the next day my wife called the plumbers and arranged for them to come out the following morning at 7am.  That night, our strata managed phoned at midnight (!) and our neighbour began pounding on our door, concerned because the drips were now “every 2 seconds”.  We informed him the plumbers were coming at 7am.

The next morning the plumbers came, replaced the washers on our taps and informed us that everything should now be fine.  Our neighbour sent an email the following day confirming the drips had stopped.  Today, our strata manager has emailed us an invoice for $451 and expects us to pay the full amount because the issue was with our taps.  We do not believe we are liable for the invoice.  The issue was not an emergency by any means (a minor drip into a bathtub) and could have been resolved at no cost to anyone.  We have been good sports about it all even though the phone calls and pounding on the door woke my 9 year old son on a school night, and both of us on a week night.

Any help and advice much appreciated.

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[LogicprObe]

 

I don’t get how your dripping tap ends up in his bathroom.
What is the year of build?

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[Jimmy-T]

I wondered that too.  If the flaw was the taps (and only the taps) the issue is the lot owners.  But if there’s a fault in the drain, then it’s common property.  What happens downstairs when you empty the bath or shower in it?

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[scotlandx]

Yes – there’s something missing here. Do you have a report from the plumbers saying what the problem was and what was causing it?

As Jimmy says, if it was the taps then the responsibility lies with the lot owners. But a tap dripping into a bathtub wouldn’t usually result in drips in the unit below.

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[Sir Humphrey]

I wonder if the downstairs neighbours were not complaining of an actual drip of water into their unit but the sound of a drip. Perhaps the drip into the bath could be heard in the unit below, which would explain why replacing a washer was enough to fix the neighbour’s complaint. The high cost for a washer replacement might be explained by the time taken to work it all out. It sounds to me like the cost was incurred because of impatience when the upstairs people said they were going to get their dripping tap fixed.

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[betweenrows]

The building was built in 1990. The occupant below apparently has an exposed pipe that runs from the ceiling down the side of his bathroom wall. The drips were coming from the area directly next to the pipe and landing in his bathtub. He has panicked, and contacted the strata manager, who has immediately called out emergency plumbers. At this point we knew nothing of the problem and our taps had been dripping (in a minor way) for over a month.

We don’t normally use our bathtub, as we all take showers and this apparently has not been a problem in any way. We do not have a breakdown of costs, but obviously the large amount is because they had to come out twice. My issue is the strata manager never informed us, so obviously we were not home the first time. My other issue is it was never an emergency. A slow drip into a bathtub does not warrant calling out emergency plumbers in my opinion.

I contacted Fair Trading yesterday and they explained the taps are our responsibility, but agreed that we should not be responsible for the whole bill at least.

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[Jimmy-T]

This sounds very like a unit I used to own where the building’s former handyman had done an “upgrade” of the block with all sorts of inventive ways of siphoning off water.

If a tap dripping into your bath causes water to drip from a pipe downstairs, you have much bigger problems than an inflated plumber’s bill.

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[Andy]

Irrespective of your tap being fixed the issue remains of a leak somewhere in the drainpipe. If 1 drip from your tap equates to 1 drip from the drain pipe, then 200 litres from your tap will equate to 200 litres in the unit below.

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[Author]

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