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/HumanistPeach Feb 18 '20

Because the damage was caused by their professional negligence- they should have turned the water off at the street before beginning any work on the water heater.

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u/BlueMagnet27 Feb 18 '20

That's why I was asking. Seemed like their insurance should pay for everything and wouldn't need to involve your insurance at all.

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u/HumanistPeach Feb 18 '20

We called our home owner’s insurance as soon as it happened, they said they’d coordinate w/the contractor’s insurance and they should end up paying for everything, but we wanted to let ours know as we’ll just in case. Plus, this way it’s less paperwork for us

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u/BlueMagnet27 Feb 18 '20

Ah, got it. Makes sense