Experience of Water Damage

Another misfortune we had during our Ski trip last December was away from where we were - it happened at home  - water damage due to a slow leak at a under-sink shut off valve.

Water damage due to inadequate prevention efforts

I have been very conscious of water damage due to leak from toilets. I turned off shut off valves to all toilets in the house for every long trip. Last December I added turning off shut off valves to sinks because a neighbor's house had flooding due to burst of supply line under a sink.

The shut-off valves were ball valves made of brass and supply lines were brass tubes. Due to over 10 years of services, they were rusted. I had hard time to turn off one valve under the sink in a bath room on the second floor. When I finally turn it off, there was leak at the valve. I dried it up and I did not notice additional leak, so I did not pay attention to it afterwards.

I realized that the difficulty to turn the valve was due to the rust on the valve so I did not try hard to turn off other valves.

When we returned home after over a week on the skip trip, the first thing I noticed was that there was some strange smell. Quickly we found that there was water dripping from ceiling of master bedroom, and then we found that the carpet in a second floor bedroom, its bathroom, closet was soaked!!

The source of water leak was the shut-off valve of the sink in the bathroom that I turned off before leaving home!! We placed big bucket under the valve to collect water -it was a very slow leak - a drip a minute.

Plumber was called to fix the valve, carpet was lift up, padding removed and multiple high power fans were brought in to blow the floor and ceiling dry. It was really noisy!


Stayed in local hotels

We took the insurance offer to stay at local hotels until the fan blowing dry work was completed.

It was first time ever we stayed in hotels near our home - it felt strange.

The repair

We followed insurance company recommendation to use a general contractor to handle all repairs: drying, ceiling, drywall, tiles, carpets, instead of hiring individual contractors ourselves.

There were quite a few  hassles with contractors.

Somehow the technicians from the fan drying subcontractor tried to stop fan drying by miss represent the reading. We had to stand behind a technician's back when he did the measurement!!

There were quite a few miscommunication between the general contractor and the tile subcontractor - some were due to language. The worker refused to take direct instruction from the project manager from the general contractor. We had to check, double check with the project manager to make sure the tile job was done per contract.

Then we had issue with the carpet - it did not look right after chemical dry. Finally the general contractor and the insurance company agreed to replace the carpet. When it was finally time to replace the carpet  - it turned out the floor ply wood away from the initially dried area had mold!! water seeped to areas where carpet looked dry, away from the wet carpet!

It was quick decision by insurance company to replace the plywood.

After more than 3 months, thousands of dollars, and a lot of waiting time between different jobs, and numerous hassles, we finally have the house fixed from the water damage !!

Preventive Measures

During the repair of the leaking shut-off valve, the plumber told us the shut-off valves and their brass supply lines were all made of brass - which has a life of 12 years or so - which was confirmed before the incident occurred - all were rusted and all were potential next source of leak. So we replaced them all with the latest better quality valves and supply lines.

Other sources of water damage include supply line to dish washer and washing machine in house, clogged gutter and damaged roof outside the house. I got the gutter to clean up next.

It is worthwhile to do all the preventive maintenance - spend a few hundred dollars to avoid thousands dollars repair bills later.