Major Plumbing Issue

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Jeannette

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Joined
Jun 11, 2019
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Location
Texas
Hi everyone,

I am a new homeowner, bought my house at the end of Jan. Two weeks within living there, our toilet begins to leak water at the seal. My husband and I then went on YouTube and tried to repair this issue ourselves (because wanted to try and fix it ourselves without wasting money) whatever we tried, did not fix the problem. Long story short - we hired a plumber and he says we have a broken pipe under the house, looks like it's 3ft in and he will have to start digging in the bathroom to fix this pipe. Also, since my house was built in the late 50s - it's not the new PVC pipe, its the older kind (cannot think of the name for some odd reason). Looks like it will cost me a fortune to have this repaired.

Now, my question is - is this something we can sue the inspection company on? Or the sellers? Because when this house was originally listed, it specifically said "all new plumbing throughout" so to me, new plumbing throughout means THE WHOLE HOUSE HAS NEW PLUMBING. But that's not the case. So, now we're stuck with this issue and we honestly do not have the money to fix this.

Any one had any issue like mine? Is there a light at the end of the tunnel for us?
 
Do you have any proof that the owners misrepresented the property in their listing.

The statement, "THE WHOLE HOUSE HAS NEW PLUMBING," generally means that the fixtures are new, but does not mean that the piping inside the walls or beneath the floor is new.

However, did you ask exactly what that statement entailed?

No you do not have any recourse against the inspection co., because like a contractor, they cannot see inside walls or beneath slabs.

You have an alternative and that is a pipe liner.
 
So many times I've heard horror stories about new homeowners uncovering issues in a new purchase. I always reccomend when making a home purchase, hire your own home inspector, plumber, electrician. Roofer, HVAC, engineer to evualeate the structure. Too many homes are "Flipped" for quick profit, hard to tell sometimes what corners have been cut to make a quick profit. Sometimes sellers are not completely honest.

New plumbing comes back to the Bill Clinton statement about what the definition the of IS Is..
 
Most if not all the members here are handyman or contractors / tradesmen not lawyers. We are much better equipped to help you with the actual problem and most of us would be happiest if the repair was done DIY but we know sometimes it is beyond the skills of some homeowners. For that reason I can’t comment on if you have a case or not or if it will cost you more money than its worth to case down someone.


If you want to explain more of your problem we might be able to figure out a repair method and maybe even a DIY method.


Is this house built on a slab or crawl space? Is the sink feed by the same line? Is there a shut off to this leaking line? Do you have any photos that show us anything?



Welcome to the forum.
 
Make sure you have 3 different plumbers tell you this is the problem, and get a quote from all three for the repair. Some plumbers are worse than lawyers, if you know what i mean.
 
"our toilet begins to leak water at the seal"

"we have a broken pipe under the house"

These two statements confuse me as to what the root problem is. But if you read the full contract with the inspector, I expect his $ss is well covered.
 
If you find you don't get sufficient answers here, you can also try on the sister site plumbingforums.com
They might be able to help you troubleshoot/diagnose the cause of the leak & confirm whether or not the plumber is being honest with you.
 
first off you can go against the previous owner as a hidden fault.
 
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