Heavy water leakage causes 'stalactites' to form on ceiling

Heavy water leakage causes 'stalactites' to form on ceiling
PHOTO: Heavy water leakage causes 'stalactites' to form on ceiling

SINGAPORE - Water leakage may be a common problem for high-rise apartment dwellers but one particular home owner says the situation in his home is far worse than others.

Lin Qing Mu, 44, told Lianhe Wanbao that water has been dripping from eight different parts of the kitchen ceiling in his Bukit Batok Street 21 flat since October last year.

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The situation is so bad that stalactite-like structures have formed on the purchaser's kitchen ceiling. According to him, water drips from the ceiling approximately once every eight seconds.

Stalactites are formations found in caves and hot springs.

He told the Chinese daily: "Water keeps dripping from the ceiling, and has even solidified to form water columns. I feel like I am living in a cave."

Mr Lin suspects that the problem might have been caused by an incident which occurred four and a half years ago, when the floor tiles in the flat above his broke and split open suddenly.

In July of 2010, Mr Lin's kitchen ceiling started peeling at the surface. By October 2012, water had started to drip incessantly.

All Mr Lin could do was to place 8 plastic containers under the affected areas. He then pours the water collected into a bucket every day. In one week's time, the bucket is usually half filled.

Not only does he have to carry an umbrella in his own kitchen, Mr Lin's wife has also given up cooking completely.

As he is worried that the water leakage could cause electrocution, he has also banned his nine-year-old daughter from going into the kitchen.

The edges of his kitchen walls are also bulging out, and look like they are about to crack.

Two weeks ago, an officer from HDB and renovation contractors of the unit upstairs came to look at the problem in Mr Lin's house.

Although water stains were discovered behind the tiles of the wall, the renovation contractor said that it was not willing to take responsibility of the problem as there could have been a number of causes behind the bulging wall.

Renovation contractors for the unit above Mr Lin's told Wanbao that there could be many causes behind the bulging and cracked walls. These include hot weather, the wrong use of materials and low-quality tiles could all be possible reasons as well.

While she admitted that water leakage could affect the tiles in a wall, she added that she had never seen tiles cracking due to water leakage in her 20 years as a renovation contractor. "What about the tiles in a swimming pool?", she asked.

According to her, some repair works have already been carried out to solve Mr Lin's problem. He has been asked to observe the situation for another two weeks.

ljessica@sph.com.sg

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