Home Improvement Contractor - Licensed Contractors

had new toilet fitted and it overflowed and flooded my basement?

I had new toilet system fitted and while I was out for the day it overflowed and flooded my basement. The engineers report says that "the toilet was blocked and the internal overflow flooded basement. I have had to reset defective overflow unit". Apparently the soil pipe outside bathroom was blocked and this caused the toilet to overflow over the pan. I am trying to get the plumbing contractor to accept responsibility but he is saying I should go back to my landlord. He is saying that the soil pipe was blocked (not newly put in) and that overflowed back into toilet. What do you think?

Public Comments

1. Who changed the toilet, I'm sure he flushed it after he installed it. did it work or not. If you run water up stairs an the pipe is clogged to septic or city then the water will come up at the lowest point. Also sounds like the float wasn't adjusted properly soooooooooo get the guy who installed it, he should have liab. insurance
2. I think this is a difficult one to prove but if that pipe was not blocked when the toilet was put in and tested then I doubt that the plumber is to blame. Any soil pipe can fail at any time because of disturbance causing collapse of an old pipe or build-up of waste matter. If you find that the blockage was waste matter from the plumbing job you may be able to prove the plumber was to blame but I would doubt you will find that. However, I agree that the overflow should not have been going on new installation.
3. i think the plumber accidentally dropped something in the hole while he was installing your new toilet
4. I recently had a new toilet installed. The manufacturer had put two sets of installation hardware in the base, but our installer only looked for and pulled out one set. Consequently the toilet was constantly blocked until we called the plumber and had it re-installed. Anyway, even with the blockage it never overflowed. That's the part that doesn't make sense in the story. It doesn't matter if the toilet is blocked if the water isn't running. It sounds to me like the "defective overflow unit" which was installed by the plumber was the cause of this problem, not any blockage in the pipe. I think the plumber's insurance should pay. The plumber would be on the hook for the water if the toilet had just kept running and draining.
5. Read your agreement. In UK it is the landlord's responsibility to maintain the drainage system, not the plumber's.. The plumber installed the toilet. He probably flushed it and it was ok. Of course a blockage may have been present and it was backing up, but not seen then. The overflow device is actually not water authority approved, as you can get water wastage. But that is another story.
6. Why did the toilet overflow, was the ball- cock faulty. Ok the blocked soil pipe could not cope with the over flow of water running because the toilet was faulty.