NOT a good time!

[Thumper]

After a relaxing camping trip, we arrived back home this afternoon. The plan was to be home a couple days, do some laundry, do some grocery shopping, reload the motorhome and head out for another 9-days. I just called and cancelled our reservations. We arrived home and walked in ... the first thing I said was, "What's that noise?" It sounded like a "babbling brook" as well as that "sound" you can hear when someone is running a bath or possibly running the washing machine. We have a fairly big, tri-level house ... three bedrooms, large linen closet and full bath upstairs, then the main level with foyer, living room, dining room, kitchen and short hallway. Ok, nothing looks amiss, all is well. The lower level steps down from the kitchen entryway, a very large laundry room. a huge den (or tv room, whatever you want to call it), a large guest bedroom, a full bath and large linen closet. We walked into the kitchen, glanced down to the lower level and WTF!!!??? It looked like a swimming pool with a river running through it! The water heater is inside that linen closet and it evidently puked it's guts out while we were out of town. (Catastrophes never happen when one is home) The whole downstairs was flooded and water was running through the house and out the sliding glass door toward the patio/pool area! OH SHIT!

I ran out, shut the water off at the outside shutoff and came back in to examine the mess. F..K!!!! I have no clue when this thing exploded while we were gone, but once I checked out the back yard, it appears I might have an elebenty-bazillion dollar water bill this month! We've spent the last 4-5 hours with my shop vac and throwing down every towel in the house to soak up as much of the water as possible. It's the biggest frigging mess I've ever seen, even after going through a handful of hurricanes. Now to find a plumber.

This is NOT going to be a fun weekend and camping is out of the question for a while. Well, except for the fact we'll probably be moving into the motorhome tonight. We'll be in the driveway, but at least we'll have all the comforts of home ... including hot and cold running water. DAMN!!! :crybaby

[DeputyDog]

Water damage really sucks. I have a couple of issues with it in the past. Any drywall damage?


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[Thumper]

Deppity, I haven't even taken the time to take a close look, but probably. I'm upstairs right now as I just needed a break ... plus I'm going to search for a plumber. Home ownership can be a real bitch sometimes ... and this is one of those times.

[Chicken Dinner]

I hate coming home to something like that. Earlier in life when I was traveling some for work and the kids were little, crap like that always happened when I was out of town and my wife would have to deal with it. I dreaded those phone calls.


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[Thumper]

Yeah, I had a call like that once that lightning struck the house and there was smoke coming out of the attic! Luckily, I was just on the other side of town, but I probably broke every traffic law known to man on my way home! The smoke wasn't anything burning (no flames), but it fried all the wiring and blew about every electrical device in the house. The smoke was actually coming from the pine tree next to the house, The lightning hit the top of the tree, peeled the bark down to the level of the house, then jumped from the tree into the attic. I not only had a fubar'd house, but it killed the dang tree too! That thing was HUGE ,,, like 3-1/2 feet in diameter. I had to have it removed also. :(

[Penguin]

Damn! Sorry to hear that Jim. I've never had a house flood to deal with and don't know much about it.... But fear of one is why my basement will remain unfinished.

My basement has numerous drains and is where we keep the water heater. I'm guessing that's not common in Florida where drainage can be hard to come by?

Will

[Thumper]

Yessir Willie, the water level is so high here, basements are rare. Most here, have the water heater in the garage actually. My sister and BIL have a very large 2-story house in Houston and their house has 2 (or maybe 3?) water heaters. Anyway, one is in the attic for the upstairs portion. It burst while they were on a cruise. Luckily their son had stopped by the house and there was water running out their front door! It took out the upstairs ceiling, flooded one side of the house upstairs, took out the ceiling in their downstairs master bedroom, flooded that room and ran out through the living room, foyer and out the door. The kicker? They had just finished remodeling the downstairs! Their damages alone were more than what my house cost when I bought it!

To add insult to injury, they also have a condo on the beach (South Padre Island). I think they’re on something like the 4th or 5th floor of a 6 (?) story condo building. Their upstairs neighbor had their water heater go out and, same thing, the water from upstairs took their condo out with it!

I think he told me when they had the Houston house redone, they installed some sort of gizmo on the attic water heater that senses a pressure drop and shuts the water off. I’d have to think that only works on a catastrophic failure, but not exactly sure.

I’ve been through minor flood issues years ago during a hurricane and the most helpless feeling in the world is watching water come into your house and you can’t do a darned thing to stop it. Definitely not for the weak of heart!

[Penguin]

I thought they might be Jim. I can understand why they might put them in house but it's a chancy thing. And they're not foolproof are they? My buddy in Chicago had his basement flood and it ruined the foundation and the basement walks. Cost a cool $300 k.

Ouch.

[DeputyDog]

I had a float on the dishwasher stick once when we weren’t home and my kitchen flooded. Of course the water made it into the finished walkout basement and did quite a bit of drywall damage downstairs.

The only good thing that came out of it was, we were already planning on replacing the linoleum floor that was in the kitchen when we bought the house with tile, so the insurance company paid for my new tile floor.


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[jb]

Any time I design a home with either a washer or WH on the first or second floor, I have them installed in a pan with a floor drain, in the lower level on a conc. floor I put a floor drain in with the floor slab sloped to the drain,
I did that in my house 34 years ago and so far on two different occasions it worked like it was suppose to.
One nice thing about water problems within the house vs. water coming in from outside the house, is insurance usually will cover the damages.

[Thumper]

Yep Bubba, when my sis and bil had theirs redone, I think there was an outside drain added from the pan. I'm assuming it was to code when the house was built, but codes change and I have to assume the pan, drain and possibly (?) the water shut-off thingy is probably an updated code situation, not sure. Your system would have surely saved them a lot of grief,