House flood anyone??

[Bob]

Sorry to hear about your troubles Bob. I certainly can sympathize with you since I once walked into 3" of water on the first floor and the basement was like a rainforest. It was caused by a break in the hose to the washing machine. The machine was not even on when I had left the house (I was gone for about 2 hours). We lost just about everything that was in boxes in the basement. On the first floor the rugs were pulled up and dried out. No furniture was ruined since I was not gone that long. Heaven forbid if I had been on vacation. It has taught me to always be good about turning off the water to the washing machine when vacationing. Good luck with the clean up.

I'll bet you bought the braided hoses. The hoses the manufacturer usually provides are rubber, and will only spew when you are in another zip code.

 

[Bob]

Busted pipe under the kitchen sink, flooded the kitchen, almost the dining room, and leaked through the floor into the downstairs laundry room--it was like it was raining down there! Mopped it all up and went about our business.

We need more folks like you in Florida...adapt and overcome.

 

[Smiling JOe]

I once had my washing machine hose work its way loose from the connection while I was out of town. My condo completely flooded, along with one of my neighbors. Fortunately, I was on the ground floor. When I received the call, I drove the five hours to return to a mess. I used a shop vac and fans for quite some time, and eventually had to buy new carpet.

However, that wasn't so bad compared to the time when a tree root had grown into the pipe for the sewer drain. It was the drain for 6 units in my condo. Same condo and I was on the ground floor. Fortunately, it happened just prior to me leaving for work, so I skipped work and freaked out trying to make it stop. When people on the two floors above me flushed or ran water, it was coming out through my overflowing toilet and into my bathtub. It never got passed my bathroom, as I had stopped it with towels and shopvac, but it was the worst two days in that condo. I found the water supply valve to the building and shut it off and asked everyone in the other units to please not flush their toilets and told them the reason. One was upset that she had no water. boo hoo. Better no water than to have other people's crap coming up through your toilet and onto the floor.

Bob, you have a problem with the ice maker? Sorry to hear it. Got a shop vac and small dehumidifier? I left the sunroof open on my car once when it rained hard. The shop vac wasn't so useful, but I put the dehumidifier in there for a day, and pulled out all of the water. The key to getting up that water is to do so immediately, like within 24 hours. Go buy a dehumidifier and crank it on high for several days, until all of the moisture is gone. Expect to empty the water container often. Good luck.

 

[Bob]

I once had my washing machine hose work its way loose from the connection while I was out of town. My condo completely flooded, along with one of my neighbors. Fortunately, I was on the ground floor. When I received the call, I drove the five hours to return to a mess. I used a shop vac and fans for quite some time, and eventually had to buy new carpet.

However, that wasn't so bad compared to the time when a tree root had grown into the pipe for the sewer drain. It was the drain for 6 units in my condo. Same condo and I was on the ground floor. Fortunately, it happened just prior to me leaving for work, so I skipped work and freaked out trying to make it stop. When people on the two floors above me flushed or ran water, it was coming out through my overflowing toilet and into my bathtub. It never got passed my bathroom, as I had stopped it with towels and shopvac, but it was the worst two days in that condo. I found the water supply valve to the building and shut it off and asked everyone in the other units to please not flush their toilets and told them the reason. One was upset that she had no water. boo hoo. Better no water than to have other people's crap coming up through your toilet and onto the floor.

Bob, you have a problem with the ice maker? Sorry to hear it. Got a shop vac and small dehumidifier? I left the sunroom open on my car once when it rained hard. The shop vac wasn't so useful, but I put the dehumidifier in there for a day, and pulled out all of the water. The key to getting up that water is to do so immediately, like within 24 hours. Go buy a dehumidifier and crank it on high for several days, until all of the moisture is gone. Expect to empty the water container often. Good luck.

Thanks for the advice. We mopped and towled and I had four letter fun. Three fans are running tonight, and the heat pump is working like a giant dehumidifier. The joys of homeownership. My neighbor last week spent 5k on a replumb, and the plumbers discovered a huge rat infestation in the attic during the install. I listened politely to their troubles unaware of my own demonic Maytag waiting to put me in my place.

 

[ckhagen]

Our septic backed up into our house (through the toilet and tub) and flooded our bathroom and bedroom 3 months after we moved in.
When we pulled the carpet back, the pad and subfloor were soaked.
We had to pull it out, let the subfloor dry out replace the carpet because it was so unbelievably disgusting.

 

[audie]

bob the same thing happened to my parents, there was about 4 inches of water in the kitchen floor and it had soaked thru to the basement and there was a couple of inches of water in the laundry room...they have never used the ice maker since. that is why i am a nut about turning the water off when we go on vacation.

 

[Bob]

bob the same thing happened to my parents, there was about 4 inches of water in the kitchen floor and it had soaked thru to the basement and there was a couple of inches of water in the laundry room...they have never used the ice maker since. that is why i am a nut about turning the water off when we go on vacation.

Turning the water off is a smart move. There are too many plumbing fixtures in an average house that can bust loose after you leave the crib.

 

[Cil]

Wow, this thread has been a revelation.
I feel very ignorant.
Bob, I am sorry for your troubles, we had something similar happen once but it was not as drastic.
I had no idea that washing machine hoses can wreak such havoc when the washer isn't on. How does this occur?
I knew neighbors who always turned their water off while on vacation; I thought it was a little bit paranoid but they left several pitchers of H2o for me to water their plants for them. Now I realize that they were not being overly cautious.
SJ
Those same neighbors had to replace their sewer when a tree root grew into it.
Perhaps this influenced their turn-off-the-water habit.
They might have had to replace it anyway, everyone on our block did, including us (the sewers dated back to the turn of the century, we had been pumping poop into our raspberry patch for years.;-))

 

[SGB]

Those darn icemakers cause a high percentage of the water damage in homes. In our case, the hose to the icemaker hose sprung a leak. The refrigerator is on the second floor. I walked into the first floor, immediately saw a waterfall coming from the fan in the ceiling of the first floor bathroom. It took a few seconds for my mind to comprehend what was happening. I ran upstairs to find a wet hardwood floor just in front of the refrigerator and water spraying out the back. What was odd was that there was very little damage around the refrigerator on the 2nd floor, but the amount of water on the 1st floor was pretty staggering and was enough to cause us to pull the sheet rock off the bathroom ceiling and walls, pull up the carpeting in the adjoining bedrooms, and call in an expert water extraction company. Needless to say we then purchased the beefiest icemaker hose we could find to replace the old one.

At the time, we just happened to be shopping for property insurance since Allstate had dropped us, and every agent I spoke with advised us not to file a claim on the water damage. It would have made it even harder to get new insurance if we had filed a claim.

Right now our icemaker is going on an icemaking spree which is causing ice to drop out of the door onto the same wood floor. We're thinking about shutting the darn thing off permanently. My next refrigerator will not have an icemaker.

We had a similar incident with a water filter hose breaking a few years ago. That incident has prompted us to turn off our water when leaving home for more than a few days. My mom has always been paranoid about the washing machine hoses and always was a fanatic about turning off the water to the hoses at all times except when the washer was being used. I always thought she was nuts. Now I don't.

 

[Teresa]

bummer bob, and everyone else with their incidents! ice makers are always trouble, but never knew they could cause a flood!!! :shock: