r/HomeImprovement • u/HumanistPeach • Feb 17 '20

Contractors just flooded my upstairs while replacing water heater, it’s raining in my kitchen- what to expect next?

So our water heater died this weekend. The repair guys just came over today, and promptly flooded all the water that was inside the old broken water heater onto my upstairs floor (carpeted), and there was so much that it immediately started pouring from my kitchen ceiling out of two hanging light fixtures. It definitely spread quite a bit, because there are two patches in the drywall that were invisible before that are now obvious, and the seams of at least two sheets of drywall are showing/swollen with water. We’ve already put the business’s insurance in touch with our homeowner’s insurance, and my boyfriend does all the IT for this company, so I’m not worried about them trying to screw us over, I’m more just looking to see how long I should except repairs to take, what the potential repairs might be, etc. TYIA!

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140

u/fuku89 Feb 17 '20

What jabronis don’t know how to drain a water heater?!

69

u/HumanistPeach Feb 17 '20

I dunno dude. They’re saying there was some sort of faulty valve, but they forgot to turn the water off at the street before starting work, so I’m pretty pissed.

66

u/fuku89 Feb 17 '20

Faulty valve? If the valve was faulty, then the heater wouldn’t have stopped draining. And I’m not talking about drip, drip, drip faulty. That doesn’t soak a floor, part of the walls and send water cascading to the floor below.

Incompetence or inattention is to blame.

26

u/pokerbrowni Feb 17 '20

Well, if you have a 40 gallon tank, and a 10 gallon shopvac and then you open the drain valve and it breaks in the open position, I could see a problem. But that seems a little unlikely. Even more so the idea that no one thought to "stick a finger it it" until the problem was solved.

1

u/KFCConspiracy Feb 18 '20

The water's kind of hot, so stick a finger in it would kind of burn you....

7

u/pokerbrowni Feb 18 '20

Most people I know turn off the water heater's heating element then run 10-15 gallons of cold water into it so they aren't working with 120 degree water when draining the system.

2

u/huffleshuffle Feb 18 '20

Those people don't flood houses

17

u/HumanistPeach Feb 17 '20

I’m thinking that is the case

12

u/jhicks0506 Feb 18 '20

If the valve was old (10 years) and hadn't been turned in a couple years or longer, it's possible the valve seal could've become damaged when the valve was turned. It has happened to me before. However it is definitely more likely it was their error.

11

u/HumanistPeach Feb 18 '20

Eh, the water heater was 14 years old, and given how little maintenance it turns out the previous owners did, it’s very possible that is what happened. Either way, they’re super embarrassed and have been pretty great so far, and they’ll be back first thing tomorrow to keep working

8

u/[deleted] Feb 18 '20

They really should have cut the water off to the whole house instead of trusting the valve. Drywall isnt meant to hold water though. Last week I had a sewer pipe back up and my master bath drained into my garage luckily with clean water. They will likely have to remove the ceiling. Thentimenit takes depends on the companies and how the insurance works out. It really shouldnt take more than a couple hours to fix the damage. A dehumidifier will be needed to dry out the carpeting but no replacement should be needed there.

5

u/HumanistPeach Feb 18 '20

We’ve got fans and dehumidifiers running on both floors, and the contractors are coming back with one more fan in like 20 mins. Most of the water drained directly through the light fixture, so the water didn’t sit on the drywall too long. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it can just be sanded out and repainted, but I’m not getting my hopes up. But yeah they 100% should’ve cut the water at the street. I assumed they had- won’t be making that mistake again.

5

u/spaghettiswindler Feb 18 '20

It should DEFINITELY take more than a couple hours to fix that amount of damage correctly. Just the drying will take more than a couple hours.

-16

u/[deleted] Feb 18 '20 edited Feb 18 '20

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u/[deleted] Feb 18 '20

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u/HumanistPeach Feb 18 '20 edited Feb 18 '20

MAKE SURE THEY TURN THE WATER OFF AT THE STREET!! Lol good luck! Things are looking much less disastrous this morning, we might not even need to replace the ceiling!

ETA a very important “not” lol

1

u/[deleted] Feb 18 '20

[deleted]

2

u/HumanistPeach Feb 18 '20

Thanks so much!