Sad day in the Ozarks

Ouch! I can sympathize for the down time and losses.

The water line to our fridge leaked last year and it ruined the laminate floor along with getting the wall wet about 2' up. Such a PITA to deal with. Also dealt with ServPro and their related contractors including abatement of asbestos materials. Our insurance was fairly fast and they cut a check in 3 weeks for the repairs. The unfortunate insurance consequences for filing a claim was 30% increase for the next 5 years. Feels more like short term loan than an insurance payout.

If you have an overflow pan under any Upstairs heating or air cond. equipment....

..make sure that the drain pipe doesn't get clogged with bio-sludge, mildew etc ...fills up the large pans! And these overflow pans often have metal which might rust.

We were very lucky in our older house because I was playing IL-2 Sturmovik (aviation game) long after midnight, and with no games sounds for a while, could hear large water drops downstairs hitting the wooden floor in the living room. Bad feeling.
If you have solid carpet or a rug under a ceiling leak you Might hear the drops!

As was said, water damage is the worst. It’s going to take some time to get everything torn out, treated, and replaced. Hopefully the insurance company doesn’t try to go the cheap route. He should try to get everything replaced and not just treated. It can cause problems later on with mood and the insurance company will decline to cover the costs twice.

One house we had a while back, toilet didn't shut off.

What a horror coming home and finding water cascading down the stairs and pouring from ceiling light fixtures.

Sorry for your friend's troubles.

My advice, when going on travel, turn off the water supply to the house.

A lady I worked with, went on travel, maybe a week, maybe less, came back and the first floor of her house was inches deep in water. The water heater leaked when she was gone.

Across the street, the lady there flushed the up stairs toliet before going on three weeks of travel. The toliet over flowed the entire three weeks. They threw all the wall boards, coaches, carpet, etc, on the curb, all ruined. It was weeks before they could re occupy the residence.

Next door neighbor, the upstairs sink blew a fitting and ruined the ceiling.

My experience, I left the house after lunch, came back around five in the afternoon, and water was pouring from the garage. The cold water supply hose to the washing machine had blown at the fitting. Everything on the floor was wet. That was when I purchased braided supply hoses to the washing machine.

When you are gone for days, turn off the water and I flip the circuit breakers to the water heater. I don't want that draining and constantly running hot. I don't know what would happen, and I don't want to experiment. And, I can recommend, flip the range and oven circuit breakers, there are an amazing number of house fires due to ranges and ovens.

when I remodeled the laundry room I installed one of these, as well as braided water lines with built-in arrestors. I know the arrestors work, as when I first powered up the washer I spent half an hour trying to figure out why it wasn't getting hot water! I'd turned the supply valve on too fast and "tripped" the arrestor. Easy fix: unscrew the line, drain it of water, reinstall, and SLOWLY turn the supply on.

I also need to get better into the habit of killing the house water supply when we're gone for a couple days.

Captcurt said:

One of my close friends owns the LGS. Last week I noticed a closed sign and the local Service Pro clean up crew in the parking lot. I pulled in to see if they needed help. Sure enough, they had a water valve break in the rest room and flooded the store. I had no idea that they had that much inventory. Besides the guns in the racks and in the display cases they had around a hundred guns in the back, plus ammo and accessories. I don't know how many boxes were ruined, but it was a mess.

The inventory was just part of the disaster. The carpet was soaked, water had gone under the framed walls and had soaked into the insulation. The wall paneling had to be removed and everything dried. It has been a week and they are still closed. My heart goes out to them. I just hope that their insurance company is better than mine.

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Sorry to hear about your friends bad news. Hopefully he can get the repairs made and be back in business before too long.

A friends cabin flooded a few years ago when the Arkansas River got out of its banks and I spent a couple of days changing electrical receptacles for him. River water is not like tap water, it leaves a deposit of sand and dirt behind. The water got about 30 inches deep in the house.

Working for a plumbing contractor in the north east this happens several times each winter. Too many people do not shut off the main valve when they go away for extended periods. The exact time a leak occurs in a water heater when you have a smart electric meter or water meter is when they start and never shut off. The town will notify you about wster flow but if it happens on Fri night and they come back Mon morning........oh well! Hope the merchandise is all salvageable for them.

I and the bride are fortunate enough to own two homes. The northern one has an up stairs tenet so can’t shut that water off for the five months we are at the south one. I installed water sensors in the basement, SinpliSafe, and shut off the down stairs toilets. The southern house is shut off completely.
My home owners policy has a &10000 limit on water. damage.

Walkalong said:

Water cause more damage and monetary loss than fire ever does, ask any insurance company.

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Unless the place burns to the ground, most of the damage from a fire ultimately is water damage from putting it out. One of my neighbors had a fire start in the attached garage, short-circuit at the service entrance, a partially filled plastic gas can nearby made it spread pretty fast, but next door neighbor saw it, fire deportment got there quick and put it out, but most of the damage was water damage from putting it out and broken down doors and windows to get access. The other big loss was all the stuff they had to throw away because of the obnoxious smoke smell that just couldn't be removed.

I guess everybody has water leak stories.
I had a pinhole leak in an under-counter water heater. I caught it before it had been wet enough, long enough to do damage and just had to do a lot of mopping. I paid to have connections made to put the replacement in the basement.
A friend had a buddy helping him plumb his country cabin. A plastic pipe joint with no cement caused a good deal of damage.

As said, when your house is on fire, those helpful fellows in the red truck will get EVERYTHING wet.
Not to mention rain and snow through a burned out roof, nobody thought there was enough left of the place to bother with a tarp.

Captcurt said:

One of my close friends owns the LGS. Last week I noticed a closed sign and the local Service Pro clean up crew in the parking lot. I pulled in to see if they needed help. Sure enough, they had a water valve break in the rest room and flooded the store. I had no idea that they had that much inventory. Besides the guns in the racks and in the display cases they had around a hundred guns in the back, plus ammo and accessories. I don't know how many boxes were ruined, but it was a mess.

The inventory was just part of the disaster. The carpet was soaked, water had gone under the framed walls and had soaked into the insulation. The wall paneling had to be removed and everything dried. It has been a week and they are still closed. My heart goes out to them. I just hope that their insurance company is better than mine.

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Only if they have flood insurance.

Been donkey's years ago now, but my LGS in Euless got the tail end of a tornado. The membrane roof was skinned right off the place. (Better than the next door single-story self storage place that lost its entire roof, leaving valuable open to the sky). The LGS was a mess there were a mix of fiberglass fibers and pellets all over the store. Every sweeping brought forth another trashcan full. Owner had to sweat out every rain forecast until they could get a new TPO roof down.

Water is evil. I've been through a couple of floods, both rising watersheds (silt & organics to make it worse) and water main related.
Had to go get some labwork for my nephrologist today--the first floor testing place still has the baseboards ripped off from when the sprinklers burst during the week-long freeze back in February.