This morning, I woke up like normal, took a shower like normal, and then went into the bathroom to brush my teeth, also like normal. When I walked towards the bathroom door, I stepped in what I thought was a fresh patch of pee, and before I could even chastise Mr. Pickles for ruining my morning, things got instantly worse. James declared that the pee didn’t smell like pee at all, and that is when we discovered it wasn’t pee; the bedroom carpet was saturated with water. Instantly, we figured out what had happened: the hot water heater had leaked, and flooded a lot of our bedroom. After some quick scrambling to see how bad things were, we found that not only had it leaked, but it had completely busted, and all of the 40 hot gallons of water were now resting comfortably somewhere outside of the tank.
A couple of phone calls, and a plumber later, we had spent $1100 and our hot water heater issue was no more.
…Or so I wish.
The floor was saturated, and since this has actually happened to me before, I knew that we needed to act fast, because that water would certainly attract every spore of mold from miles around if it wasn’t dried up quickly. After a clean up estimate that I thought was kind of ridiculously high ($1800), I set out to rent the fans and a dehumidifier myself. Since the pad of the carpet is pretty much a big, floor covering sponge, I decided to just pull it up and throw it away, so that I could increase my chances the actual subfloor might dry in time. I also made that decision based on the fact that carpet padding is pretty inexpensive overall, and the padding that was there was pretty gross upon inspection.
As I write this, my bedroom is not a bed room at all. Our bed has been moved to the office, and the carpet has been pulled up, the pad has been cut out, and there are fans blowing wildly in the room that was my bedroom this morning.
Yeah, it could have been worse, but that sentiment hardly makes one feel better when their bedroom floods and they have a day like I did. I’m still trying to convince James that this just gives us a good reason to get hardwoods for the bedroom (which we have been talking about since the day we moved in), but what will happen in the coming days is yet to be seen. I’m hoping that something good can come out of this truly annoying situation; and at this point, the hardwood floors are all I have have to cling to in keeping that hope alive. All and all, a pretty shitty day that I had to use a vacation day on.
Dwayne, I share your pain. We recently got back from a great two week vacation in Australia and New Zealand only to discover a leaking pipe that in the end caused $2500 worth of damage. Water is not your house’s friend.
We also considered replacing the bedroom carpets with hardwoods but in the end decided that carpet is more comfortable in the bedrooms.
Been there Dwayne. My first house upstairs half bath busted the water pipe. I was gone and when I came back water was pouring out my garage and front door. Alarms were going off and not a single person in my neighborhood came out or anything. I opened my front door to a gush of water. Most of the water was concentrated near the front door (where the half bath was) but most of the water went down the stairs in the basement completely flooding it.
My damage: 32K
Good luck. Mold is really the most important thing you can prevent. Everything else is secondary.
Ray
that’s bad luck for certain. i bought a water heater basically on the way out the door to a week in jamaica a few years ago — it put a serious dent in the spending $ for the trip. mine was seeping & i realized it when enough had leaked to make the hardwoods buckle in the dining room.
a buddy & i got the replacement from lowe’s & installed it ourselves. we put a pan under it, and ran a pipe through the floor. later a plumber came & ran the pipe through the crawlspace & through the foundation wall.
did you guys have that set up before the incident? if not, do you now? i’m curious because i just don’t think what i put in would handle 40 gallons if it leaked quickly… the pan is not very deep & the pipe through the floor is small.
cjg
Sorry I got late notice of this. But if you need any help, please feel free to give me a call.
Thanks everyone for the kind words and support.
However, Simon and Ray; don’t make me bitchslap you! It’s d-u-a-n-e! LOL
Sorry, DUANE! My boss’s name is Dwayne and I sometimes spell his name as Duane, so I get hell from him too. I’ll try to keep up.