Life without kitchen for a month

[Hijack73]

So Friday night/Saturday morning at about 3AM my phone rings. I'm out of town. My daughter says there is water coming up through the floor. We are on a slab, I start praying that my pipes are in the walls. Got a plumber out on Monday, and I wasn't lucky. Slab leak. It has apparently been leaking slow for a while, because when he cut into the laminate floor, it was just mold all the way through. Got a restoration company out within minutes, and my kitchen, living room, her bedroom (shares wall with kitchen) and the laundry room all had moisture under the floor. Cabinets also soaked as well as the bottom few inches of drywall.

Estimated cost of repair, not including the $2500 check I wrote to the plumber is 26k. New flooring, new lower cabinets. The mold in my daughter's room is so bad that they set up dryers and some kind of air cleaner that has to run until Friday before they can even work in there. It's zippered off like some kind of crime scene.

Thankfully I'll get almost 2k of the plumbing check back through insurance and my deductible is "only" a thousand bucks.

It sure is a pain in the rear.

Gonna be a lot of sandwiches and whatnot in my immediate future. Sigh.

 

[Flatrate]

Damn so sorry to hear this, good luck.

Dave

 

[JLinza]

Damn, sorry to hear that. We had kind of a similar issue, years ago with a water leak. Just FYI, when they replaced all the lower case work it didn't match the uppers. I had to tell them, that wasn't going to fly with me and insurance finally replaced all to match. So don't let them try that with you. Good luck, hope it gets fixed soon.

 

[02ebz06]

Ouch! I didn't have the expense you did, but I feel your pain.
We had a house built it Texas and at the end of the 1 yr warranty, I had an home inspector come out.
He had turned on all the faucets and the shower in the Master bath.
Water started backing up in the shower.
Guess we never ran enough water through to have that happen.
Turned out to be a belly (sag) in the waste line, and it it was right under the island in the kitchen.
A lot of jackhammering through the slab.

Apparently a backhoe or something had run over the line before concrete was poured.
We were without a kitchen for 3 weeks.

 

[clifish]

So Friday night/Saturday morning at about 3AM my phone rings. I'm out of town. My daughter says there is water coming up through the floor. We are on a slab, I start praying that my pipes are in the walls. Got a plumber out on Monday, and I wasn't lucky. Slab leak. It has apparently been leaking slow for a while, because when he cut into the laminate floor, it was just mold all the way through. Got a restoration company out within minutes, and my kitchen, living room, her bedroom (shares wall with kitchen) and the laundry room all had moisture under the floor. Cabinets also soaked as well as the bottom few inches of drywall.

Estimated cost of repair, not including the $2500 check I wrote to the plumber is 26k. New flooring, new lower cabinets. The mold in my daughter's room is so bad that they set up dryers and some kind of air cleaner that has to run until Friday before they can even work in there. It's zippered off like some kind of crime scene.

Thankfully I'll get almost 2k of the plumbing check back through insurance and my deductible is "only" a thousand bucks.

It sure is a pain in the rear.

Gonna be a lot of sandwiches and whatnot in my immediate future. Sigh.

That sucks, just went through no kitchen or bathroom on the main floor for 2 months. Insurance would not cover my $1800 plumbing bill as they said a leaking toilet supply line is "maintenance"?? they paid me $32K for repairs and we spent $100K...Then they cancelled my insurance at renewal time!!!!

 

[clifish]

obviously some of that $pain was self inflicted in breaking into another room, but there was no way I could have put it back together like it was from what the insurance gave me.

 

[JLeonard]

WOW! Oh man that is horrible. Hopefully its fixed in a timely manner and the way you want it fixed. Sounds like the cookers may be getting a work out!

Jim

 

[chopsaw]

Slab leak.

Slab no crawl space ?
Maybe I missed it , but did they identify the source of the water ?
Was it a pipe ? Supply coming into the house or something after the regulator ?

Be informed on where the responsibility starts and stops for the homeowner and the utilities .

Slab on grade , possible ground pressure ?

Just stating some obvious things to consider if someone didn't already .
Good luck , it all works out in the end .

 

[Hijack73]

Slab no crawl space ?
Maybe I missed it , but did they identify the source of the water ?
Was it a pipe ? Supply coming into the house or something after the regulator ?

Be informed on where the responsibility starts and stops for the homeowner and the utilities .

Slab on grade , possible ground pressure ?

Just stating some obvious things to consider if someone didn't already .
Good luck , it all works out in the end .

It was the pipe that ran to the kitchen sink, about 3 inches down in the slab. House just turned 24 years old. Now my kitchen is sealed completely off. The mold on the backside/bottom of the cabinets was nice and black. I went back looking through my utility bills. Water usage has actually been up about 6 months, so this has just been stewing away for about that long I'd guess.

I'm going to raise cane on the cabinets matching. I already know I'm getting dropped when it comes time to re-up. My adjuster just had a 10 minute argument with the restoration guy about how this should be cat 2, not cat 3. The independent adjuster is inbound as I type this. Nationwide better be on my side. He tried to "be funny" and asked the restoration guy if we were looking at 30k. The restoration guy said probably not quite and when we hung up, he told me that 30k isn't too far off....

I'm sure State Farm will be happy to have me back, they just called back around December and asked me if I would come back to them. I only switched to Nationwide last year because my girl used Nationwide for auto and when I called them to get a quote they did come in a hair cheaper than State Farm.

 

[clifish]

It was the pipe that ran to the kitchen sink, about 3 inches down in the slab. House just turned 24 years old. Now my kitchen is sealed completely off. The mold on the backside/bottom of the cabinets was nice and black. I went back looking through my utility bills. Water usage has actually been up about 6 months, so this has just been stewing away for about that long I'd guess.

I'm going to raise cane on the cabinets matching. I already know I'm getting dropped when it comes time to re-up. My adjuster just had a 10 minute argument with the restoration guy about how this should be cat 2, not cat 3. The independent adjuster is inbound as I type this. Nationwide better be on my side. He tried to "be funny" and asked the restoration guy if we were looking at 30k. The restoration guy said probably not quite and when we hung up, he told me that 30k isn't too far off....

I'm sure State Farm will be happy to have me back, they just called back around December and asked me if I would come back to them. I only switched to Nationwide last year because my girl used Nationwide for auto and when I called them to get a quote they did come in a hair cheaper than State Farm.

I only had 1 row of bottom cabinets that had slight mold. They said it would be about the same to match cabinets than to just replace them. I did get a couple bucks for the increased electrical usage the dehumidifiers the resto co had in for a few weeks.

I tried to move to Travelers after I was dropped and they picked up I had a water claim and they told me to come back in 3 years?? All the insurance companies share their claims info so you can't lie about it. I ended up with a company I never heard of @30% more.....did I say they all suck.

 

[DRKsmoking]

Sorry to hear this Jack. I hope it all gets cleared up and everything is covered by insurance.

And no later health issues from the mold.

It is all a pain just having to deal with people that really want to find a reason not to cut you a cheque.

David

 

[chopsaw]

I went back looking through my utility bills. Water usage has actually been up about 6 months,

I actually got a call last billing cycle from the city telling me my usage was double from the month before and to check inside the house and call them back . Turned out it was a toilet running in a bathroom I don't use . I guess if I had not found that , they would have looked at the underground .

 

[thirdeye]

Is there any provision in your homeowners insurance for displacement costs? If so, you might consider renting an apartment while the work is being done.

 

[Steve H]

That sucks. Sorry to hear that.

 

[Hijack73]

Is there any provision in your homeowners insurance for displacement costs? If so, you might consider renting an apartment while the work is being done.

I had a fairly civil conversation with the adjuster today with me asking for an air BNB for at least as long as the air scrubbers are running. No dice. I get to eat out on their dime and he made it sound like he was doing me a magnanimous favor. I wasn't unpleasant with him about that, I'm saving Big Mad Mode for when they come in saying I can't have matching upper cabinets. He made some snide remark about how they'll put it back like it was before (with regards to materials etc) and I'm going to hold onto that nugget because my flooring was practically new when I bought the house back in 2020, it didn't have 20 years of wear and tear on it. Previous owner did DIY it (the kitchen) over original linoleum, and I'm glad that came up, it always felt funny walking on it. I don't have a receipt but I do have notes from the home inspection talking specifically about that, the roof, and the furnace (all less than 2 years old at purchase) and my cabinets darn sure matched before.

I sure wish I'd stayed with State Farm. The restoration company said that by far State Farm is light years better at dealing with than anyone else when it comes to this.

 

[Hijack73]

Sorry to hear this Jack. I hope it all gets cleared up and everything is covered by insurance.

And no later health issues from the mold.

It is all a pain just having to deal with people that really want to find a reason not to cut you a cheque.

David

Thanks David.
I had a whole variety pack of mold. Black, green, and white. Like Baskin Robbins, 31 flavors!

 

[indaswamp]

Ouch! That sucks! Feel for you man....

 

[Brokenhandle]

Wish you the best on getting it taken care of! Insurance companies... well, we all know!

Ryan

 

[Chris_in_SoCal]

This sucks but I am glad you found out about it before anyone's health was affected by the mold.

Hopefully it wont cost too much but at least your kitchen and other rooms should turn up better in the end of this. Keep us updated.

 

[chopsaw]

conversation with the adjuster today with me asking for an air BNB for at least as long as the air scrubbers are running. No dice.

Are they monitoring the air quality in the space you're still in ?
Check the company that's doing the remediation and make sure they are licenced to do the work . I hope it's not Serve Pro .

They should also open up the walls and check inside .
I've had to open up the bottom of walls 2 foot high and pull everything out to get it to dry out , and that was before any mold started .
Thing is if they don't get it all , it will be one huge waste of time and money .
I honestly can't believe they didn't put you up somewhere .