Rusty Pipes

Now that I am no longer hyperventilating about our plumbing/water damage situation, I feel comfortable talking about the craziness that ensued after our discovery of the puddle in our guest room.

The morning following the discovery, we called our Home Warranty company. We had heard mixed reviews about the responsiveness/helpfulness of home warranties, but decided to call them first because our service call fee through them is only $100 (vs. our deductible for our homeowner’s insurance which is much more.). For anyone wondering, our home warranty was purchased by the seller when we were purchasing the house and it is through Old Republic Home Protection. We called the service line, they entered our claim into the system, and that afternoon: a plumber was at our house.

Josh opened the wall and they saw this:

Well, no WONDER it was leaking so much! Doesn’t even take a plumber to diagnose that problem. 🙂 He then cut out that portion:

And replaced the MAJORLY CORRODED pipe with PVC piping:

He let us know that the fix he did that day and was paid by the home warranty would be a ‘band-aid’ and offered some suggestions on what would be the best option to avoid having to open up walls again in a few years, since the pipes were so corroded. He also reached out to Old Republic to let them know about the corrosion and they agreed to pay for a more extensive fix, since corrosion is a very common problem in older homes.  He left that night and let us know it would be okay to shower the next morning and that he would be back in a few days to do the second fix. We also agreed to have him to replace another pipe in the wall for some preventative maintenance since the corrosion on the other pipe freaked us out and we wanted to avoid any more opening of walls as possible in the future. This was not covered by home warranty, but we thought it was a smart move to do it NOW, rather than later when IT decides to go.

The next morning (Tuesday), Josh showered with no problems. I showered…and Josh was yelling up the stairs for me to turn off the water JUST as I was starting to shampoo my hair. Rude. The drain pipe was no longer draining into the bedroom, but was backing up into the sink and flooding the bathroom. WOOPS.

We called the plumber and he let us know there wasn’t much he could do until the rest of the pipe and parts came in..so we would have to not shower in our house until he came back that Saturday to fix it. Okayyyyy. It all ended up being okay because it turns out that when our parents feel sorry for us, they let us shower at their house and they feed us. Not a bad deal. Thanks, parents!!! (SERIOUSLY..our coworkers are thanking you, too!)

He came back that Saturday and replaced the entire main drain line coming from the shower upstairs and our sink downstairs.

Meanwhile, due to the second flood, we became concerned about the possibility of having more extensive water damage, so we called in a claim to our homeowner’s insurance. We didn’t REALLY want to because we did NOT want to say goodbye to our deductible, but we noticed a bit of cupping in our wood floors and were also concerned about the area below the vanity/flooring in the bathroom.

After playing phone tag with our insurance person for a few days and Josh and I being confused because it was our first time filing a claim..they sent out a water mitigation company to dry out the two areas.

 

The water mitigation was estimated to take 3-4 days, but at that point they were still concerned about the high levels of moisture. They even talked to us about the possibility that the tile in the bathroom might not dry out and they may have to gut the room. After about a week and a half, they finally got the moisture levels down to a “normal” level, so there was major relief happening about that. We got our insurance check in the mail to cover the estimated cost of replacing the wall and ceiling with drywall in the guest room, so that will be happening when we get the drywall in the living room done. YAY for one less room with those horrid ceiling tiles.

 

Overall, this whole thing was a MAJOR learning experience for us and reminded us about the importance of following your gut and having an emergency fund. I could only imagine what would happen if we didn’t have the cash to pay our deductible for the water mitigation services or just thought everything was a-okay just because the surface of the floor was dry to the touch and the plumbing was fixed. Mold is no joke, ya’ll. For real.

Overall, though…I’m just glad it is OVER and we can get back to the fun(ish) stuff. 🙂

 

And then, a waterfall…LITERALLY.

Sunday night, we were eating dinner on the couch, watching the final few episodes of Breaking Bad on Netflix and giving each other high fives for how productive we were this weekend. We tackled rototilling the front lawn, made three trips to the dump to get compost and throw stuff away, organized and vacuumed the shed and our garage, both of which were extremely cluttery and holding a ton of scrap wood, trash, old shelves/cabinets the previous owners left. We went grocery shopping, made yogurt and fruit salad for the week, finished laundry…In between episodes, I was going to run and brush my teeth when…I found a puddle of water in our guest room.

WATER. in the ONLY room we weren’t going to pay attention to for a LONG time and is also holding all of our junk from our sunroom. Cuss words were spoken.

Cue Josh and I freaking out and googling “How to locate a leak.” I found a This Old House video clip and off we went at 11 PM, trying to locate the source. It wasn’t a ton of water, so we assumed it wasn’t an inbound pipe, so I stayed down in the bedroom while Josh turned on the shower upstairs. After about 45 seconds, I heard water trickling down from upstairs, but the ceiling wasn’t wet, I didn’t see anything coming down the side of the wall, or ANYTHING! Then, the water started flowing..from UNDERNEATH the baseboard trim in the corner of the room. Awesome.

That’s when we decided it was time to call in the big guns and use our Home Warranty that we got with the purchase of the house from the sellers. Fingers crossed everything goes smoothly! We’ve heard mixed reviews from people about whether or not their home warranties have been worth it or not…so, I guess we’ll find out. Next step would be going through our Homeowner’s Insurance, so…anywho, wish us luck!

Beavis and ButtHEAD

No, this isn’t about the TV show-it is about how we got spoiled at our rental with a shower head that can be removed from the wall..I guess they are called “Hand Showers.” Tuesday was the first day we showered in our bathroom (once we got our shower curtain!). Literally one minute after I got out of the shower and went downstairs I said to Josh, “You know what I miss from our last shower?” and he said, “The shower head?” YES. GETOUTOFMYBRAIN.

I don’t know about you, but I love being able to rinse off soap like I am washing a car.  On our trip to Lowe’s, we bought ourselves a Moen Banbury Glacier Hand Shower. We didn’t go super fancy pants on the shower head, since later down the line we are going to do a full renovation of the bathroom upstairs, plus any of the pretty chrome ones would look weird against the really outdated tan and brown tiles in the shower. It would be like wearing blingy diamonds with a frumpy outfit. Not a good look.

Josh installed it last night after installing the blinds in our bedroom. I fell asleep at 9:30 because I am lame and it was a beautiful surprise when I hopped in the shower this morning. Success! Not much to complain about there other than he didn’t take pictures for the blog. What a butthead.