Bathroom issues

[Acidphire21]

I hope this is in the correct place as need some advice before sorting:

Background:
Purchased house (new build) Dec 2011 water leaked between bath and wall and came through light fitting in August 2012, Builder came and repaired checked electrics etc. and raised bath and re-sealed. Sunday night bath did same but now builder is refusing to do anything, How exactly do I raise it? (never explained that i have to do it or what to do. but this is the line the builder is now going with.) Is this normal? or as it happened before should Barratt be doing it?

Thanks for the help

 

[NewHomeExpert]

Barratt are one of the few, perhaps the only house builder that genuinely really do care about thier customers after they move in.
From what you have said, you are being fobbed off which is not right.
E mail Barratt CEO mark.clare@barrattplc.co.uk and let him know fo your experience.

Regarding your bath:
First of all cut all the old sealer away using a shape knife taking care not to scratch the bath/knife slip.
Then remove the bath panel, usually held by four or more screws in at the bottom. Remove these and the panel shoudl drop down and can be removed.
Under the bath, the bath feet should fixed to a 25mm thick by 100mm wide spreader timber just under the full width [or length] of the bath.
I suspect the timber bearers are missing and the bath (when full) is bowing the chipboard floor.
So add timbers is they are missing and adjust the legs by screwing down the lock nuts to jack the bath up.
Make sure the bath edge is free of grease and scale or dirt or the sealant wont stick.
Once this is done you can re apply the silicone sealant. Use a anti-mould one Dow Corning 785 is my choice.
Application is not as easy as it looks though and make sure no one uses the bath for 12 hours.
Be sure to squeeze some between the bath edge and the wall if you can, as well as sealing the top.

It is a pity Barratt operatives didn't do the repair job right in the first place though!
Just shows the kind of bodgers we have building UK new homes today!

 

[zednine]

because the developers use cowboys to build the houses it has been fitted in correctly..

before you tile round the bath the bath when fitted should have silicone between the bath and wall, then when its tilled the tiler should fill the bath full of water and silicone around the bath edge..

none of this would have been done to save time, so when you use the bath it pulls away from the tiles an silicone..

real pain to fix to be honest..

 

[NewHomeExpert]

Wall tilers don't normally do the Dow corning 785 (silicone) a specialist contractor is used.

 

[JAKing]

Just a quick top tip to anyone reading this thread. When you seal a bath seal it full, that is fill it with water BEFORE you add the seal. The weight of a person + water can slightly alter the shape of the bath, certainly with modern day plastic rather than cast iron baths. This may break the seal if it was sealed when empty. If its sealed full then empting it will cause a compression to the seal, which should not matter. Sealing the bath when its empty can cause a seal elongation when its full, which can damage the seal.

Top tip brought to you by kingy, who learned the hard way after breaking the bath in the wife's house in 1997.

- she had a cream colour bath, anyway i accidentally dropped this huge bottle of shampoo she bought from the top of the shower shelf to the bath just beside the plug hole, causing a small chip, I thought, no problem i will just get another bath from B&Q - doh, could not buy a cream one so had to fit an entire new white bathroom suite!!! then once i had it and had removed the old bathroom she wanted it tiled and things, I learned the hard way that you seal a bath when its full, not when its empty.