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

[u/HumanistPeach]

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!

[u/[deleted]]

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.

[u/HumanistPeach → u/[deleted]]

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.

[u/spaghettiswindler → u/HumanistPeach]

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.