Preparing the House when you go Away
Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2011 1:30 pm
For some reason I thought the post “Lists While On Island…” was about something different but it was about arrangements you make to water plants while you are away.
To riff on but not hijack that thread and specifically highlight the risks associated with stuff that can happen while you are away on vacation, here is a new thread based on recent experience. Hopefully it can spare somebody from the same fate.
When we got back from our recent 11 day trip to Italy, we walked in to a weird smell of wet cardboard. Yup, the small water line behind the refrigerator leading to the icemaker had sprung a leak. Not a heavy leak, but it must’ve been going for quite some time as it ruined the laminate floor in the kitchen, got under the rug in the adjacent family room, under the flooring of the foyer behind the refrigerator wall, and down into the basement – not a flood, but a slow soak.
This trip return from Europe is at 8:30pm here, so its 2:30am body time. But, you switch into crisis containment mode, and I didn’t get to bed until dawn as I took photos, then tried to mitigate the damage with the shop vac, carpet shampoo machine (not to clean, but to suck water out of rug), cut up and pulling up laminate flooring to get at wetness underneath etc . etc.
Get the claims adjuster out, they arrange for the remediation/restoration service, we have a week of fans, dehumidifiers, and these “vacuum mats” down to dry the subflooring out after they remove the floor surfaces from those 3 rooms.
It’s a $9k claim and counting. What a freakin headache and the ultimate post vacation buzz kill.
Good thing we have “extended replacement cost” on the homeowners so this will wind up costing little out of pocket. We just keep telling ourselves, Hey in a few weeks we’ll have 3 new floors. No doubt influenced by our Italy experience where you hardly see wall to wall carpeting anywhere, we just picked out tile for the kitchen (no joke – its even called “Tuscany”) and laminate (DuPont version of Pergo) for the family room and foyer.
If this and the severe weather, fires, etc. that have been going on all around the country made you wonder about your own insurance coverage, there was a recent article in USA Today about it – might be worth a look. Bad enough to go through a loss, but to lose significant $ in the process of being made whole again would be a double whammy.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/col ... does_n.htm
Lessons learned? We have a new-ish house so maybe not as proactive as maybe we would be with an older house, but, I thought I was pretty good about shutting off valves to outside faucets, washing machine, unplugging stuff, etc. etc. but didn’t think of the small saddle valve leading to the icemaker, OR, shutting the main water valve to the house would’ve prevented this loss too. WARNING: only shut off the main water valve if you know it won’t damage other stuff like an electric hot water heater etc. Also, use a copper or high psi braided water line with factory attached compression fittings for your icemaker line, not a unreinforced poly line.
Anyways, hope there may be takeaways here for some of you.
To riff on but not hijack that thread and specifically highlight the risks associated with stuff that can happen while you are away on vacation, here is a new thread based on recent experience. Hopefully it can spare somebody from the same fate.
When we got back from our recent 11 day trip to Italy, we walked in to a weird smell of wet cardboard. Yup, the small water line behind the refrigerator leading to the icemaker had sprung a leak. Not a heavy leak, but it must’ve been going for quite some time as it ruined the laminate floor in the kitchen, got under the rug in the adjacent family room, under the flooring of the foyer behind the refrigerator wall, and down into the basement – not a flood, but a slow soak.
This trip return from Europe is at 8:30pm here, so its 2:30am body time. But, you switch into crisis containment mode, and I didn’t get to bed until dawn as I took photos, then tried to mitigate the damage with the shop vac, carpet shampoo machine (not to clean, but to suck water out of rug), cut up and pulling up laminate flooring to get at wetness underneath etc . etc.
Get the claims adjuster out, they arrange for the remediation/restoration service, we have a week of fans, dehumidifiers, and these “vacuum mats” down to dry the subflooring out after they remove the floor surfaces from those 3 rooms.
It’s a $9k claim and counting. What a freakin headache and the ultimate post vacation buzz kill.
Good thing we have “extended replacement cost” on the homeowners so this will wind up costing little out of pocket. We just keep telling ourselves, Hey in a few weeks we’ll have 3 new floors. No doubt influenced by our Italy experience where you hardly see wall to wall carpeting anywhere, we just picked out tile for the kitchen (no joke – its even called “Tuscany”) and laminate (DuPont version of Pergo) for the family room and foyer.
If this and the severe weather, fires, etc. that have been going on all around the country made you wonder about your own insurance coverage, there was a recent article in USA Today about it – might be worth a look. Bad enough to go through a loss, but to lose significant $ in the process of being made whole again would be a double whammy.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/col ... does_n.htm
Lessons learned? We have a new-ish house so maybe not as proactive as maybe we would be with an older house, but, I thought I was pretty good about shutting off valves to outside faucets, washing machine, unplugging stuff, etc. etc. but didn’t think of the small saddle valve leading to the icemaker, OR, shutting the main water valve to the house would’ve prevented this loss too. WARNING: only shut off the main water valve if you know it won’t damage other stuff like an electric hot water heater etc. Also, use a copper or high psi braided water line with factory attached compression fittings for your icemaker line, not a unreinforced poly line.
Anyways, hope there may be takeaways here for some of you.
