So about an hour ago I walked down to the kitchen to get a cup of tea, and my ears were assailed by a most unusual sound coming from the utility room, a sound that can only be described as 'the gushing of water'.
Upon opening the door to the utility room and stepping in, I found myself standing in an inch of water, and looking to the corner of the room where the washing machine is, there was a geyser of water shooting up from behind the washing machine with such force that it was going straight up to the ceiling and then splashing down in quite an impressive 'ceiling waterfall' effect.
After having a little panic I remembered that the stop-cock is outside in the yard, so I went outside, plunged my hand into the horrible manky hole where it resides, and turned the water off at the mains.
Surveying the damage it could have been worse, it managed to miss the plug sockets and the boiler, and having cleared everything out of the room and sweeping all the water and crud out into the yard - there's nothing in there that won't dry out. Anything in there that was cardboard is trashed, and it had managed to completely saturate the washing basket and all the washing in it.
Having pulled the washing machine out and looking under the worktop, the cause of the disaster was the washing machine's hot water feed pipe coming off the 'mains pipe' that it joins to. (The washing machine has a hot and cold water feed.)
Over an hour's clean up later and the room is back in reasonable shape, however, this is where I'm a bit confused. I've attached a couple of pics, one shows what it looked like when I got to it (I've restored mains water to the house so I've turned the valve to the off position, as of course as soon as I turn it back on mains pressure water will again shoot up to the ceiling), and the other shows me having put the pipe back on to the best of my ability.
If you look at the two pipes, it's very obvious that the cold water pipe is far more snug and properly attached to its feed pipe, to the extent that I can't get it off with my hands. The hot water pipe however clearly isn't back on properly at all, and whilst if I turn the valve back on, the pipe stays in place, I won't trust it not to pop off again (I can easily pull it off with my hands).
So the question is, in the midst of the disaster, has a washer or something other little gubbin become detached and lost? Or has the hot water pipe never been attached properly and we've just been lucky up to now? I don't want to call a plumber out for such a trivial job, but at the same time we're currently minus a washing machine so something has to be done. (It always draws from the hot pipe for the wash cycle, even if it's just pulling cold water through.)
BEEX hive advice appreciated