What a night... (A bad one)

[R_einan]

Was working the late shift last night, and about 1945 my wife called me in hysterics. She had just gotten home picking up our daughter after work. Found the basement of our split level with 4-6" of standing water over ~900 sq ft. She managed to get the water main shut off, and with the help of a neighbor/friend found the cause: fitting on the toilet tank that the feed line threads onto let loose. Pulled what I could out of the basement, unplugged everything, and started the insurance process. Water remediation guy got out about 2030 and pulled what he could out but the walls were puking water. Hit the sack about 0130 and am expecting the crew back around 0900. Water guy said it was one of the worst he's seen and we are likely looking at everything but the studs 48" up coming out. Including the brand new carpet we had put in 6 mos ago. What a crazy night, and I'm sure many long days ahead.

 

[toyotadriver]

Sorry to hear. Rough to go through that but at least you have insurance.

What kind of plumbing line to the toilet? How old were the lines? Where did the line split?

 

[bimmer1980]

Yikes, that *****.

 

[Fixed]

It's crazy that when you think about it, such a small supply line for an everyday appliance can do so much damage.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

[MFolks]

If possible when the huge water bill comes in,plead some reduction in cost.I don't remember what happened to my Brother many years ago,but their water heater tank let go,and being it was separate from the rest of the house in a room,no one noticed the problem til later.

 

[ForceFed70]

Man that *****!

But it could always be worse. My Dad did an entire home and kitchen remodel including beautiful hardwood floors. Last step was to install the appliances. Similar thing - water line to fridge let loose in the middle of the night and wasn't noticed until next day. Hardwood ruined, water fell into the bedroom and recrooms below resulting in gutting brand new rooms they hadn't event gotten the furniture into yet.

 

[homebuilt burner]

I feel bad for you. Good luck. The same happened to us 15 years back but it was a washing machine hose, fortunately my wife was home and caught it before it got to bad.

We have a water alarm in the basement now. It is about $10 and the size of a pack of cigs. Sounds off like a smoke alarm. They also make them that shut the water supply off.

 

[heavyzee]

That *****. And Painful, but definitely can be a good thing.

Our home 2500 sq ft 1 floor , and my 900sqft shop got flooded back in April here in Houston.

Insurance pays top dollar for professional remediation and re-construction. Do the construction, and you can make a nice bit of change, and do it all exactly how you want it. It just takes tons of time to do it yourself on such a scale if you have a 9-5. Im just finishing up the shop now. House was done in August, but still have built-ins to replace.

Best of luck getting everything back to normal.

 

[cvairwerks]

I feel for you. We had finished a remodel on our other place about 6 months prior. Had a real frog strangler come thru the area. We got 7 1/2 inches of rain in 20 minutes. 10 inches of water flowing thru the house within a couple of minutes of the rain starting. 30 minutes later, not a puddle in the yard. Ripped everything out I could below the window level, turned all the a/c units to max cold, ran fans and dehumidifiers, but with 4 hours had mold growing in two walls. Worst part about it is the insurance people had screwed up and the flood insurance was never activated. I'm still paying in multiple ways for that albatross.

 

[Hobbit]

Wouldn't trade my recently discover roof/skylight leak over the garden tub, mold and all with you for anything. I've been where you are and insurance or not it's just no fun. Loss of wages, sleep, etc... just no fun at all.

 

[softailgarage]

Reminds me of the time I came home after a 2 week vacation. Walked in the door and noticed the entire hallway carpet was soaking wet. Traces the problem to a bedroom closet where the floor was very warm. Hot water line in the foundation had a pin hole leak. The closet floor was Jack hammered, pipe cut and rerouted thru the attic to the kitchen. Thank God it was a pin hole leak.


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[Richard Cranium]

I purchased a new water softener, The first night we had it, some thing blew out In the control head and flooded our basement. I woke up the next morning and could hear water running through the pipes full blast. Didn't take long to track it down. Only a foot of water in the whole basement.

 

[Kevin54]

It's crazy that when you think about it, such a small supply line for an everyday appliance can do so much damage.

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You got that right. We had a small pinhole in our waterline to the fridge. I don't know how long it had been leaking, but one day I looked across the hardwood floor, and something didn't look right with the wood. The 3/4" hardwood looked like it was pulling up on the ends. I went down into the crawlspace to look at the subflooring, and here was a damp spot about 8'-10' in diameter. I called insurance, they called Serv-Pro, and they called the floor refinishers. By the time it was all done, it was about an $11,000 repair bill

 

[nonhog]

http://wateroutsouthpugetsound.com/

Great company ^ not sure the range they have. Might try them if you haven't already made plans.

 

[C_F]

What kind of plumbing line to the toilet? How old were the lines? Where did the line split?

I'm curious about this too.

A few years ago, we had a neighbor a few doors down...two days before Christmas, an outside faucet froze & broke, flooding their entire basement with about a foot of water. The call went out & about 60 people decended on their house, pulling all the carpeting & padding through the basement windows, moving most of the furniture to the garage, and sucking up all the water.
Before that happened, the house was decorated beautifully, presents under the tree, etc. The wife & kids were in tears, because when were done, it looked like a tornado had gone through there. I felt bad for them, yet very glad that my house was dry.

The cause of the broken faucet? Someone had left a hose attached & it froze hard enough to split the frost proof faucet inside the wall of the house.

 

[Catadj78]

If possible when the huge water bill comes in,plead some reduction in cost.I don't remember what happened to my Brother many years ago,but their water heater tank let go,and being it was separate from the rest of the house in a room,no one noticed the problem til later.

Insurance is likely to cover the increase in the water bill.

 

[LS6 Tommy]

I'm sorry to hear about your problem. I bet nine4gmc can give some really good insight into the cleanup and rebuild process.

Tommy

 

[wasfuzz]

if you plead your case to the Water Utility you should get by cheap. When i worked for the city their policy was to charge for the water only, but not the sewer as the water was not treated at the sewage plant as it was pumped outside. Just a thought!

 

[FRC928]

That truly *****!

Last year when we went on vacation my wife thought I was being paranoid for turning off the water in our house, this is the exact reason.

 

[ford fanatic]

No sump pump?

A couple years ago we go a call from the tenants in our rental house that the drain line had broke off the washing machine and flooded the basement. Worst part was we were out of town when it happened on vacation.

 

[yhprum]

Knew someone had the ice cube maker line break overnight. Came down the stairs in the morning (still dark) stepped in several inches of water off the last step. I saw a water detector recently that calls you when activated, maybe time to get one.

 

[wyo george]

That ***** big time, how long were you away from the house? I'm asking because at 900 sq feet that's 2,805 gallons of water at five inches deep. A garden hose usually flows around 5-6 gpm so even at that it'd take roughly eight hours to flow that much. My point is that unless it'd been leaking for a day or more then you might look around and verify that you don't have a more serious leak somewhere else or some other source of flooding.

 

[R_einan]

Remediation crew came out this AM, ripped up all my new in May carpet and pulled the pad out, removed all the trim and took some of the drywall. My attached garage is stuffed with most everything that was in the basement and my shop has a bit as well. Overall, didn't lose that much, some books and movies that hadn't been unpacked since we moved in six months ago. Couple pieces of cheap partial board furniture were toast. A lot of the Xmas decoration boxes were waterlogged but the decor was up so not a huge lose. Some things were in plastic totes and anything stacked on the totes was safe. Got pretty lucky on that front.

I had left for work at 1130, and had been downstairs to start the clothes dryer just before I left. Wife found it at about 1945. So it must have let go just after I left for work.

Thank you guys for the thoughts and well wishes. Hopefully this can get over with quickly and we can move on.

 

[shelteredV]

Goes to show that **** can happen at any given moment. Thank goodness your loss is minimal, besides all the aggravation ):
A sump pump might be in order. It's one of those things that you don't really need until you REALLY need it.

 

[MattVette89]

Wow that really *****! Look on the bright side...now you can pick the carpet color you wanted in the first place

 

[csp]

A friend had a sink supply line on the upper level of a two story home with a walkout basement break over a three day weekend. They were 350 miles from home and had no idea. Someone building a barn for them called while they were on the way home and said that water was coming out of the joint where the sill plate sits on the foundation.

A year after everything was rebuilt a toilet supply line on the main floor broke and they got to do it over again, but on a much smaller scale. It only ran for half a day the second time around.

 

[mires]

OP, check your water pressure and if it's high (above 80ish psi), install a PRV. I'm a plumber and supply lines blowing apart like that are almost always due to having high water pressure. In the city I live in there are areas with pressure up to 150 psi. Those toilet supply lines and your faucet supply lines are only rated to 100 psi. We stopped using the supply lines with plastic nuts on them a long time ago for this very reason.

 

[rburke65]

My buddy owns a house built in 1927, 5800 sq. ft. Had a toilet fitting break in the second floor. The water cascading down the steps and falling over onto the hall floor was detected by the motion detctor and set off the security alarm. I think it was over $80K. Ins. was going back on Mfg. of the toilet part. Sorry to hear of your bad luck.

 

[manwithtools]

OP, check your water pressure and if it's high (above 80ish psi), install a PRV. I'm a plumber and supply lines blowing apart like that are almost always due to having high water pressure. In the city I live in there are areas with pressure up to 150 psi. Those toilet supply lines and your faucet supply lines are only rated to 100 psi. We stopped using the supply lines with plastic nuts on them a long time ago for this very reason.

I had two failures of supply lines, one toilet and one sink in three years. I installed a tattletale gauge only to discover I was getting spikes near 125 PSI about 9:00 AM every morning.

Installed a pressure regulator and a thermal expansion tank and now I never see over the 65 PSI I set the regulator at. The thermal expansion tank is a must in my opinion, otherwise you will see pressure increases from the hot water heater cycling.

 

[R_einan]

OP, check your water pressure and if it's high (above 80ish psi), install a PRV. I'm a plumber and supply lines blowing apart like that are almost always due to having high water pressure. In the city I live in there are areas with pressure up to 150 psi. Those toilet supply lines and your faucet supply lines are only rated to 100 psi. We stopped using the supply lines with plastic nuts on them a long time ago for this very reason.

I had two failures of supply lines, one toilet and one sink in three years. I installed a tattletale gauge only to discover I was getting spikes near 125 PSI about 9:00 AM every morning.

Installed a pressure regulator and a thermal expansion tank and now I never see over the 65 PSI I set the regulator at. The thermal expansion tank is a must in my opinion, otherwise you will see pressure increases from the hot water heater cycling.

Both excellent ideas, I'll have to look into this so I don't have to worry about this happening again. Thanks gents!

 

[R_einan]

Goes to show that **** can happen at any given moment. Thank goodness your loss is minimal, besides all the aggravation ):
A sump pump might be in order. It's one of those things that you don't really need until you REALLY need it.

Luckily a neighbor had a pond pump that help us get some of the water down. A sump pump maybe something I look at adding while I have a disaster already.

 

[Chaznsc]

Was working the late shift last night, and about 1945 my wife called me in hysterics. She had just gotten home picking up our daughter after work. Found the basement of our split level with 4-6" of standing water over ~900 sq ft. She managed to get the water main shut off, and with the help of a neighbor/friend found the cause: fitting on the toilet tank that the feed line threads onto let loose. Pulled what I could out of the basement, unplugged everything, and started the insurance process. Water remediation guy got out about 2030 and pulled what he could out but the walls were puking water. Hit the sack about 0130 and am expecting the crew back around 0900. Water guy said it was one of the worst he's seen and we are likely looking at everything but the studs 48" up coming out. Including the brand new carpet we had put in 6 mos ago. What a crazy night, and I'm sure many long days ahead.

This is survivable. We had our second floor flooded TWICE by the AC contractor. Dont even get me started.

• They should be setting up dehumidifiers to run 24/7 for the next week or three
• Id cut the sheet rock from the walls to help prevent mold, which will happen quick.
• Remove the carpet and padding if not already done so.
• Have a shop vac ready to go at all times.

Keep us posted, let us know what you need.

 

[cdeer001]

Don't they make a SS braided hose with a built in valve that is supposed to automatically close if the hose breaks? I can't think of the proper name for it at the moment and my Google-Fu is weak this morning.

 

[kd7gab]

Don't they make a SS braided hose with a built in valve that is supposed to automatically close if the hose breaks? I can't think of the proper name for it at the moment and my Google-Fu is weak this morning.

Yes, I have these on my fridge supply at home and a pair of environmental chambers at work. Very inexpensive insurance against one of the most common leaks in a house...

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[Moose97]

Totally *****! My moms house was flooded a few years ago when the pressure spiked and blew out an under-cabinet filter. 12" of sheetrock and insulation had to go throughout house plus all carpet. Worked out fine but what a pain in the keester! Good luck!

 

[Perroflojo]

Don't they make a SS braided hose with a built in valve that is supposed to automatically close if the hose breaks? I can't think of the proper name for it at the moment and my Google-Fu is weak this morning.

I think there is a special gadget or valve that you install where the water comes into the house and can sense the flow of water caused by a leak and turns the water off to the whole house. I just can think of the name for this valve or sensor.

 

[manwithtools]

Don't they make a SS braided hose with a built in valve that is supposed to automatically close if the hose breaks? I can't think of the proper name for it at the moment and my Google-Fu is weak this morning.

They are called an anti-flood or FloodSafe hose and from the terrible reviews I read on them, I would not trust them for anything. That's specifically true of anything with the Watts brand name on it.

 

[manwithtools]

Refrigerator ice maker supply lines are the number one source of water damage in homes, dryer vents are the number one source of fire related damage. This information comes from a good friend who is a Servpro (water and fire remediation company) district manager.

 

[fsae0607]

Damn that's scary. Worst I had so far was my water heater flex supply line leaking at the crimp last year. Luckily it let loose right before we got home from work. Got the water heater closet walls wet, but luckily it was a hot dry week so it dried quick.

 

[-Brent-]

I know our lines are less than five years old but, man, it makes me want to go check them out. I had a colleague that had the same exact failure happen.

Hopefully insurance takes care of you.