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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u/llDemonll Feb 17 '20

you should also look at getting displaced to another location for a while when the big cleanup starts. that's going to put a considerable chunk of your house into an unusable state. this is something their insurance should be covering, not you paying for.

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u/HumanistPeach Feb 17 '20

Do you think we’ll be out of the house that long? They shop backed up all the water upstairs pretty quickly, and it’s only looking like 2-3 sheets of drywall will need to be replaced in the ceiling (hopefully), which from what I understand should only be a day’s work... ugh this is not fun at all

13

u/llDemonll Feb 17 '20

it depends how thorough of a job it is. if it's just a single room that saw damage it's going to be quicker, but if water got all through the walls as well, or below the room it leaked into, etc., it's going to be longer.

it's also something that just needs dry time, so they could open all walls and then not do anything for 2-3+ days while fans are running to dry things out

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u/HumanistPeach Feb 17 '20

Oh geez ☹️ thank you for the info!

11

u/fuku89 Feb 17 '20

I hate to be doom and gloom, but you’ll also have to keep an eye on how well the repair goes. Especially since it’s the “other guys” insurance.

I wouldn’t be surprised if they opt for the “good enough” route, instead of the “has the claimant been made whole” route. A prime thing to look at is how well has been the drywall been finished. Everything else is pretty idiot proof.

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u/HumanistPeach Feb 17 '20

“Luckily”, I’m currently unemployed and know a fair bit about carpentry and home repair (one of the few perks of dating my ex for so long- he was a piece of shit, but he was a pretty decent contractor), so I can be here all day to supervise repairs. One of my friends from high school also just repaired loads of flooding damage in her house and told me a few companies I definitely want to avoid.

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u/Hozer60 Feb 18 '20

They will have to charge you more if you are there supervising all day😊

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u/HumanistPeach Feb 18 '20

My hourly rate is $150/hr 😁 but I probably won’t charge them for it since I’d be here anyways. They’re also my SO’s client, so we want to keep things friendly.