D*S*A*S*T*E*R

Just got back from a flying trip to Charlotte, (MI). Wife's parents passed a couple years back, and family has been slowly cleaning and distributing things from the family home. Family of 7 children, wife the oldest. Large 7 bed - 2 bath, two story plus full basement - farm home. Remodeled and enlarged about 30 years ago, and in nice shape. The hot water line to upstairs bathroom sink came disconnected. Soldered copper pipe at shutoff valve. Hot water ran for don't know how long. Soaking thru ceiling of first story in two rooms, flooding dining room, kitchen, and living room. Water an inch deep on kitchen, dining room floors. Water was at least 4 feet deep in basement. Flooding sump pump out, furnace, water heater, floating freezers, and about everything in basement. Through it all, the deep well jet pump kept running, even when it was under water. Steam is causing condensation in two of the four upstairs bedrooms, ceilings and walls. As well as most of the downstairs rooms. Ceiling of lower floor, and insulation is soaked, leaking on the seams of the plaster board. At least two rooms will have to have new floors, maybe more. Carpeting replaced in others. Lots of drywalling in several rooms will have to be replaced. Fortunately, the wasll were painted with good latex paint, and rooms with condensation may be able to be repainted. Worst thing will be moisture inside walls ceilings, insulation. Hopefully they can pull the water out with dehydrators before mold sets in. When we left, the restoration guys had 2 gasoline pumps pumping out the basement, and were hooking up the truck mounted vacuum to try to dry out some of the lesser soaked carpeting. Oh, and temps are in the single digits tonite, teens all day.
There's going to be a heck of a restoration bill for this! Hope the insurance is up to this. Family was cleaning it out to sell the house. Brother from Nashville, TN just happened to be visiting this weekend, others came in from across the state. All the family was there except two sis-in-laws. If there was a bright spot in all this, the restoration foreman commented that it was nice to work with a family that was laughing and getting along. When he deals with disasters like this, apparently he runs into a lot of screaming, crying, fighting, etc. Guess I married into a special family!

Good luck hope it all turns out OK. Ron Mn.

Sorry that your family has such a mess on their hands.
That's why my home alarm system has a zone for flooding. Better to find out when the water is 1/4" deep.

Wasn"t anyone there? I know how it is, unfortunately.. you ask the "I shoulda turned that off" questions later... we have an empty house.. in waiting to be remodeled, old farmhouse. We had been heating it with an oil furnace, just enough to keep it from freezing. Forgot to turn the pump off, furnace went out, a cold water pipe fitting popped in the shower and flooded the bathroom and basement. Fortunately I caught it soon so we just had to pump about 4 inches of water from the basement. But this house still has old plaster, all of which needs to be redone anyhow.

Glad You All are taking it so well , Just hope the INs was indeed paid Up.. just as well remodel and paint beige and white neutrals to fit the potential New Owners tastes,,.. Lots of times a new buyer is overwhelmedwith the personality trait a house takes on and keep looking instead of buying ,, Good Luck and keep Smilin , jim

About 6 years ago a co-worker had just built a new home. 2 story also in MI. Just weeks after moving in he and his wife went on vacation for a week or so. A soldered pipe in the second story let go. It flowed for a week. filled the second floor and caused structural failure and flood damage. $80,000 worth!

Sad to say, but we're going to hear more of this happening. Al the maint guy at work was showing me some sort of solderless paste that is being used more and more to put copper fittings together. I didn't get the name of it, but it comes in a squeeze type brown plastic bottle about the size of a loctite bottle. I'm not holding a lot of faith in the stuff. But PVC seems the make new master plumbers every day.

Well hope all works out in the end. The cost sure can eat up profits.... a lady not far from me this month had left for couple of weeks. .. Sometime while gone a water line in house broke and she has big troubles over it trying to get money from the insurrance company.

Sorry for your troubles-hope it all turns out ok for you. We almost had the same thing happen last Wed. My wife had just used the bathroom and stepped in water on the rug by the sink. The hot water valve had sprung a leak and I couldn't shut it off at the sink. Ran down stairs and turned it off at the water heater. My dad always turned the well pump off when he left home. Us kids thought it was a goofy idea at the time but after I got my own home I started doing the same thing. I have gotten the kids in the habit of doing it also.

That doesn't sound good, but in time it can be repaired. There is a old house on our place. It has a bacement,just high enough to stand up in, with a dirt floor, no foundation, just 2X6 on the dirt, and 4X4's holding the house up. When water was brought to our area. the old house was plumbed, and the water heater was put in the bacement. It sprung a leak and leaked for days.When I found it there was about 6 in of water. The rest of the water soaked into the ground. For some reason the house didn't fall down. It is still standing. I think every home owner in time will suffer some major water leak. I have. my leak was under my cement foundation. My daughter had a plastic water line the rats ate a hole in it, above her beedroom that was a mess. The building dept finally stopped the use of plastic pipe in construction.Stan

prolly froze. When copper pipes freeze, which they easily do, they split a line or shove off a fitting, in my experience. Make sure it's replaced with the soft plastic water lines & that problem goes away.

Whenever we leave home for at least one overnight, or longer, we ALWAYS shut off the water pump before we leave. We had a water heater spring a leak once, made a big mess.
City dudes should shut it off where the pipe comes in from the street.
LA

Wow that is a lot of damage! Good luck with the restoration.

My MIL is in the hospital (has been for 3 weeks) she aint coming out for at least another 3 weeks. I told the wife to check on the house, run the water, flush the toilets, run the hot water.

A womam that used to cut my hair (when I had a lot more of it) told me that her and her hubby went on vacation and a kitchen sink water line blew. They came home to a few inches of water in the house. Real messy, moral of the story: when on vacation or at work open the cabinet doors under the sink to warm them pipes or just shut off the well pump or close the main shut off if on city water.

My wife doesn't sleep well at night, I was out cold and she was setting in her chair late one night when she heard the ice maker on the fridge start to run water. It kept on running so she got up to look and the water was running out of the door. She yelled and I got up and turned off water to icemaker and helped her clean up the mess. Now if we leave for more than a day, I turn off the water at the pressure tank. Chris

When you shut the water off at the tank, do you do anything about the water heater? Turn to pilot or leave it as is?

Only a fool would use plastic water lines.

Sorry to hear about your disaster. Sounds like a major cleanup/restoration job. Jim

To S.Crum. It is called "Just for Copper"
Comes in handy when you don't want to burn the house down soldering copper.

I'm assuming you have forces air heat.

ed1,
I have had both, forced air and water heat, and I should have said to turn off the "well pump" to avoid confusion. With water heat the "water pump" has to keep running in Wisconsin in the winter.
LA in WI

Wow Ray. Would you be better off if you could get the insurance company to call it a total loss? Have it bulldozed and sell the lot? In this market,it might be the best way to get your money. Guess in hindsight,flipping off the breaker to the pump might have been a good idea huh?

Really?

I guess our rural water district with hundreds of miles of the stuff must be real morons.

The connections are only as good as the installer - copper or plastic.

We've had several floods in this area in recent years, and the contractors have pretty much figured out how to deal with them. Tear out all the sheet rock and wet insulation, immediately- and the carpets, and anything you know will be ruined by the water, like cabinets if they're affected. You can really minimize the mold damage if you get all the wet stuff out instantly, and start drying it. Don't even start rebuilding until studs are down to less than 20% moisture. Some people tried to economize by seeing if they could save stuff by drying, but its become clear that the cheapest way in the long run is to err on the side of taking too much out, rather than trying to save things that got wet.

Ray in Mich, if you talk to insurance company, your story better be somebody lived there at the time. When I had rentals in detroit, insurance co. refused to pay several times because of vacancy. Dave in Mich.

Get a dehumidifier in there pronto! With that much water in the house and all closed up in the winter there will be a mold problem like you have never seen before and everything in the house will be ruined! Better put one in the basement and one upstairs and run them hard! Put fans in also to circulate the air to help things dry out. I delt with big floods and helping clean up friends houses here in Indiana last spring and it is amazing how fast it will mold up. Any walls that got wet will have to be stripped of insulation and drywall and all carpet or items with foam and fabric that got wet has to go no matter how old or new it is. Spray bleach water on any wood or anything else that got wet and is growing stuff.