Anyone deal with water damage restoration?

[origami]

My dishwasher had a "system failure" this week and dumped a metric ton of water into my kitchen, which then leaked into adjacent rooms and the finished basement. Whatever part was supposed to tell the dishwasher to drain the water never went off, so it just kept adding water until it broke through the seals.  

We have a water remediation company dealing with it but the insurance claim guy is on vacation until next week so I don't have final word on exactly what we're in for, although they got approval for a few things. I know we will have to get new flooring on the first floor and they already removed drywall and the basement carpet. A couch was soaked down there and probably other stuff but i haven't even gotten a chance to inventory the damage yet. There is water damage to some of base kitchen cabinets at the bottom but i don't know what they'll do about that yet. The flooring doesn't go under the cabinets. 

Just curious if anyone else dealt with this and if you have any advice. Esp about whether or not to try to get a whole new kitchen or just deal with the floors. I'm getting the impression I could make this go in either direction if I pushed hard enough. I don't love the kitchen but it's not bad and the thought of redoing it now makes me cry. we JUST finished a 3 month backyard reno last week and I'm so over contractors being here all the time. 

[alf17]

This happened to us. Our dishwasher leaked when we were out of town. You need to get fans and humidifiers going in your house to prevent mold. Our insurance company was great. They didn't have to remove the cupboards. They removed the hardwood floors in the kitchen, dining room and foyer. They also had to remove part of our island. The adjuster was great and insisted that they put new wood and not just remove the damaged area and refinish. There was not enough wood left due to the fact that our ice maker had leaked at one time and they refinished them. They started the renovation in March and we are just waiting for the painter to finish up. It has been a stressful 4 months. Good luck.

[Susie]

It wasn't the dishwasher specifically, but in January 2019, my dad had a plumbing failure of a 2nd floor shower at his beach house.  It's hard to say what exactly happened; the Nest thermostat was working, the house was warm, but it appeared that the pipe froze.  Since no one was there, it was a few days before it was caught.  By then the sheetrock ceiling of the kitchen on the first floor had caved in.

It was a cape with 2 beds/1 bath upstairs, and living area, 1 bed, and 1 bath downstairs.  Almost the entire interior of the house had to be replaced, most rooms were taken down to the studs.  Unfortunately the shower was right in the middle of the 2nd floor, so the water damage went throughout the house.  Sheetrock, cabinets, flooring, everything.  If the cabinets aren't real wood, once they get wet, it's done.  The counter tops might have been salvageable, IDK, but once you're in this deep... my dad opted to do some upgrading.  He also replaced the dishwasher and range, although that was at least in part upgrading.  The carpet and HW floors all came out, now it's all LVP and tile.

He worked with insurance right away, and a remediation company to dry it out as quickly as possible and prevent mold.  They removed the sheetrock on day 1, set up all the fans, moved the furniture to offsite storage.  I think his insurance carrier set him up with the remediation company, and they did a really good, fast job.  Because they acted fast there was no mold, and most of the furniture was actually salvaged.  

[winecat]

Do you know if you have actual cash value or replacement value coverage? I think that's one key difference in determining how much money you'll get for fixing.

[origami]

Replacement value thankfully. Susie YIKES. that sounds awful!

Our cabinets are melamine. I heard the workers saying it's likely the bottom ones are toast. Apparently they will try to replace them with an exact match before throwing in the towel and letting me get a new kitchen. No confirmation on this b/c the insurance inspector guy is still on vacation.

[winecat]

Jul 8, 2022 15:09:01 GMT -5 origami said:

Replacement value thankfully. Susie YIKES. that sounds awful!

Our cabinets are melamine. I heard the workers saying it's likely the bottom ones are toast. Apparently they will try to replace them with an exact match before throwing in the towel and letting me get a new kitchen. No confirmation on this b/c the insurance inspector guy is still on vacation.

Phew! Actual cash value on depreciated melamine cabinets likely wouldn’t be much. Yeah- if water gets under the melamine finish the structure is likely ruined.

[dr.girlfriend]

I can't believe they are just saying the insurance guy is on vacation -- there's NO ONE to cover for him?

[polarbearfans]

I did recently. My adjuster was out a lot too. I escalated to a supervisor and got the estimate approved. Someone should be covering your adjuster while on vacation whether a teammate or supervisor.

Way more got replaced than I would have guessed, and way nicer floor since what we had was considered obsolete and not really even an option. The big thing is for fans/dehumidifies to be running to prevent mold. Good luck. Such a frustrating process, but once the estimate was approved the company I wanted to use was out the next day and got work done quickly considering all they needed to do.

[devonpow]

We had our water line to the freezer/ice maker break while we were on vacation. The water remediation company brought in giant fans and ripped up the floor of the kitchen, the ceiling/walls of the basement storage room beneath it, and the basement hallway carpet. We had to run them for a long time - a week? Hard to remember. They are LOUD and it was really disruptive but had to be done. It’s hard to remember the timeline now but we brought in our insurance guy pretty quickly to document everything (our storage room was destroyed so a lot of items we had to inventory them toss).

We had been about to do a full kitchen renovation anyway so losing the kitchen floor was luckily a non issue. The basement was huge though - we ended up doing a major renovation and upgrade to the storage room (we turned it into a laundry room) and hallway. So we spent a lot more than insurance covered.

Also we learned to always always always turn the water off to the house when we go away. I won’t even run the dishwasher or washing machine when not home anymore. Serious fear of water damage over that experience.

[origami]

Jul 8, 2022 20:23:42 GMT -5 dr.girlfriend said:

I can't believe they are just saying the insurance guy is on vacation -- there's NO ONE to cover for him?

Right? Ugh. The water remediation ppl are losing their minds on the insurance company. Yesterday we noticed an additional (carpeted) adjacent room has water stains on the floor. Maybe it’s a coincidence but I think the fans caused this because the stain is new and near a new fan they brought over yesterday. So now the entire first floor has to have new floors.