Tap water damage

As tap water damage refers to a material damage to buildings or facilities, through out plumbing inappropriately leaking tap water has emerged. This definition, which is mainly used in the insurance industry , distinguishes tap water damage from other water damage such as B. can arise from flooding, backwater from rainwater or from extinguishing water.

Economic importance

Tap water damage is of considerable economic importance. The tap water damage insured in the residential building insurance alone showed damage amounts of over 2 billion euros in 2013 - and the trend is steadily increasing. This amount is higher than the amount of damage caused by fire, which in comparison was only 0.8 billion euros per year.

insurance

Building owners or tenants can insure themselves against the risk of tap water damage with building insurance and household contents insurance.

However, after several LW damage, it becomes almost impossible to find a building insurer that covers the LW risk.

causes

If one examines tap water damage with regard to its specific cause, different categories can be distinguished:

• Planning errors : In these cases, the planning of the installation was already incorrect. The laying of water pipes in non-frost-proof areas is an example of this.
• Execution errors: Execution errors occur when an installation is not carried out properly. Examples are improperly executed press connections that lead to leaks or excessively tightened screw connections that result in cracking. Likewise, when pipelines are under tension.
• Material defects : Defective or unsuitable material can lead to tap water damage. Poor quality castings can serve as an example of material defects. The combination of different materials is also a source of danger.
• Incorrect operating conditions: Incorrect operating conditions can also cause tap water damage. An example of this is too high a temperature in hot water pipes, which leads to the corrosive destruction of the pipes. Insufficient or inadequate heating of buildings during periods of frost can also be assigned to this category.
• Aging: Normal aging processes of the materials used for tap water installations usually lead to damage after 30 to 50 years. In the case of metallic lines, the material removal plays a role with increasing time - plastic lines often become brittle with age.

A very important point is water hammer . The normal service water line has a pressure of 4 bar. Solenoid valves and single-lever mixers that close or close suddenly cause water hammer. These water hammer can increase the water pressure to 40 bar for a fraction of a second. Pitting and copper corrosion usually develop from the inside out. The most frequent cause is dirt particles in the pipe system that could get into the pipes during the new installation due to unclean work. Before being processed, copper bars are often placed vertically on the walls of new buildings in the sandy soil.

These categories follow the system used by the Institute for Loss Prevention and Loss Research of Public Insurers (IFS) in its claims database. In the evaluation of this database, cause statistics are published every year.

Loss prevention

Loss prevention is understood to mean all measures that reduce the probability of occurrence and / or the amount of damage. A distinction can be made between technical and organizational measures. For example, the selection of suitable installation material for the tap water installation is a technical measure in terms of damage prevention. Securing the building heating in case of frost, on the other hand, is an organizational measure of loss prevention. Loss prevention was dealt with in relation to the problem of tap water damage and published in the magazine Schadenprisma .

You can't completely prevent tap water damage. But you can prevent small damage from becoming large. The leakage protection in tap water installations is used for this . Leak protection devices, also referred to as leak detectors, shut off the water supply as soon as tap water is damaged. Just as electrical fuses secure electrical installations - leak detectors secure tap water installations. Electrical fuses have been an integral part of electrical installations since the beginning of electrification at the end of the 19th century. Leak detectors for tap water installations were only developed to market readiness around 100 years later. A number of front leakage protection products are now available. So far, however, few tap water installations have been secured by leakage protection.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Statistical Yearbook of the Insurance Industry 2013 ( Memento of the original from January 8, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
2. ↑ IFS cause statistics for tap water damage
3. ↑ New approach to damage prevention in the event of tap water damage
4. ↑ Leakage protection for tap water installations