The Great Flood, Part II

Hey, remember that time I wrote a post about how we had a pipe leak that damaged 4 rooms and we were starting to renovate them? Yeah? Well guess what...

 

We had a 20 year old GE dishwasher in our kitchen that I hated. It was loud, ugly, and ready to break at any time. Since we were doing other renovations to the house, I figured that now would be the perfect time to replace that old dishwasher. I figured it would save us any future headaches from more leaks (since we just learned what a pain in the ass those can be).

 

So I ordered a nice, new Whirlpool dishwasher: stainless steel, top controls, quiet, everything I wanted. Home Depot was set to do the install on the following Saturday. Installation day arrives, and the dishwasher gets put in. The guys set it up, put the kick plate on, and get ready to run a test cycle. I'm nervous, since I don't want anything to be wrong. They turn the water back on, turn on the dishwasher and... no leaks!

 

We go about our business for a couple of weeks, when I start noticing cracking in our cabinetry. It was next to the dogs' water bowl, and I knew it looked like water damage, so I assumed that somehow the dog started splashing water on the cabinets. I moved the bowl. A few days later we notice water along a corner of our foundation. We assumed the hose was leaking, so we moved that too. Then, the next morning arrived.

 

The water was still there. Something clicked in J's head and he goes, "The dishwasher is on the other side of the wall." But how is that possible, you ask. They checked for leaks! You watched them! No, no they didn't. Long story short... They assembled and installed the whole dishwasher, including the kickplate, prior to turning the water on. Had they tested without the kickplate they'd have seen that they didn't tighten the water line where it connects to the dishwasher. This little "oversight" created a constant stream of water flowing under our cabinets for two weeks.

 

I won't get into the weeklong ordeal of dealing with Home Depot and the subcontractor playing a game of "Whose insurance company pays for this," but I will say that it has been hell. After 5 days, Servpro was finally sent out by one of their insurance carriers to remove all the water damage and clean up the disgusting amount of mold that was infesting half of our kitchen. FIVE DAYS. My sinuses are still killing me from inhaling that crap.

 

I still have yet to hear from an actual claims adjuster, but we were told to get contractor estimates. So, that's what we're doing. As of now we'll need at least 3 entirely new base cabinet units, refacing for all existing cabinets since we haven't been able to find matching doors, our wallpaper removed and the kitchen repainted, new countertops, and a new backsplash... for starters. And you know what? Home Depot has been so terrible throughout this whole situation that unless they somehow make things right, we won't spend one dime at their store ever again.

 

The subcontractor they hired that caused all of this damage was rated F with the BBB. They refused to give us their insurance info, and even when I told Home Depot that, Home Depot told me that I still needed to handle the issue with the subcontractor. I was made to do all the work to remediate an issue that they ultimately caused. It's been terrible.

 

As of today, here is what I'm left with in our kitchen. Notice our dishwasher and sink are gone. We have been left with an unusable kitchen. All I wanted was a new dishwasher to prevent a disaster like this from happening. Preventative maintenance. I don't even know the term for what I've been left with, but "shit" fits the bill pretty well.

 

 

The Great Flood

Oh, where to begin... Over the summer I had high hopes for doing crafts and DIY projects, and then blogging about them. I managed to do a lot of crafts and DIY projects, but I kept missing that blogging step.

I was just finishing up some curtains that I was going to use to segue myself back into the blogosphere...

These curtains, to be exact:

And then this happened:

"What caused it?" you ask... This. This stupid pipe right here:

That pipe connects to our A/C drain pans and routes the water into a drain line. In Houston, as we now know, it is illegal to have your A/C drain line run directly to the exterior of your house. It has to drain internally. Why? Well an A/C unit apparently produces over one gallon of water per day. We have two units, so that's over two gallons per day. If every house had two gallons of water consistently pooling outside, it would cause a large mosquito problem.

So this was the solution. An interior drain. However, our home was built in 1994 and they no longer use this kind of design anymore. Why? Because they can get algae built up inside and overflow. Surprise, surprise.

Anyway, my first clue that something was wrong was when I noticed water all over the dryer in the laundry room. There is a bathroom directly above, which we don't use, so I thought that maybe a seal dried out and broke and it dumped water onto the floor. Upon further investigation upstairs, we realized the leak was coming from the attic, and there was far more damage than just the laundry room.

Here is what we're dealing with... We had minor damage to our dining room, that was the good news. It meant that our wood floor, which runs through the entire downstairs, was unharmed. We had major damage to our laundry room, my studio, and a bathroom. Those three rooms need extensive drywall repair, the laundry room needs a new ceiling, and the bathroom and studio need new floors as well.

We've had Servpro in to dry everything (did I mention that our A/C broke the same day as the leak? Yeah, that was awesome), dealt with our homeowner's insurance, and now we've started renovations. We're doing it all ourselves, so it's going to be a long-ish process. The good news, is that I don't have to deal with a contractor, and I know everything will be done right and exactly how we want it.

So that's where we stand. It's been a real treat...

Hope y'all like house-related posts

I have so many things to update about, but no time to sit down and write.

 

I did some awesome crafty things over the summer, and definitely need to post about them, buuuuttttt... We also had a big leak in our house and have been unwillingly thrown head first into home renovations!

 

Lucky us!

 

Thanks to a plumbing issue, and the subsequent homeowners claim, we are now renovating our dining room, our laundry room, my craft studio, and one of the upstairs bathrooms.

 

Yup! Good times.

 

I really, really, REALLY want to start blogging more so I suppose this is as good of a reason as any, right?

 

Quick Project: Burlap Valance

So, we finally worked on our staircase. You know, the staircase that I pulled the carpeting off of back in September? Yeah, that staircase. And it is turning out AMAZING! I have to do some touch up work, and paint our railings, but then it'll be all ready for its own little blog post.

 

While painting I realized that I have a whole other house to take care of (oops). We also have friends coming to visit next weekend, so I've been doing some small projects in addition to the staircase. Today I was cleaning and realized that our kitchen window really needed a valance.

 

I'm in yoga pants, a tank top, and covered in a fine layer of cleaning supplies and dust so running to the store wasn't an option. Solution? Leftover burlap + my sewing machine + 15 minutes = ...

 

I think that turned out well! Okay, break time is over... back to getting our house all ready for guests.