That's what I was thinking last night as I was moving towels from the washer to the dryer. It was 8:35 PM, I had gotten up from the movie and my sewing, and I heard water. I thought: "Water is running, somewhere. Is the sprinkler system on? Why is the sprinkler on?"
I said to Steve: "I hear water running." And he said "You turned the dishwasher on."
And I thought "I didn't turn the dishwasher on. You turned it on – and you forgot that you did." Honestly, ladies, isn't that what you would think too? So, with the dryer now on, I went to the kitchen. The dishwasher was not on. I felt bad for assuming that Steve was so forgetful and then I thought, "why do I hear water?"
I walked through the living room and into my studio, headed for the bedroom and bathroom. It sounded like Steve was in the shower, except that he was sitting there, on the sofa. Just about then, I stepped into hot water. I speeded up, and rounded the corner as the water was getting deeper and deeper.
Did I take a picture? No, I did not. If I was younger, much younger, I would have been snapping away :-). You will have to imagine a waterfall, like this:
flowing out from under the cabinet door under this sink:
Many things happened in rapid succession:
- I hollered to Steve.
- I probably used a 4-letter word. Maybe more than once.
- I pulled open the cabinet door, knowing that there is a shut-off knob.
- Hot, hot hot water spilled out and my glasses must have fogged up because I couldn't see anything. And the water was HOT. And I my feet were in lots of water!
- I suggested (probably loudly) that Steve should GO OUTSIDE AND TURN OFF THE WATER!!! He did. The waterfall stopped.
- I called, and then texted Rick, our contractor.
- I called Chris – 'HELP!"
- Steve and I got towels and 5 gallon buckets. I was thinking that we'd wring the water out into the buckets. Not a great idea. The water was 1/2"-1" deep and covered the bedroom and half of my studio.
- Steve got the Shop-Vac. Great idea! I got the extension cord.
- Rick called, said he and Juan were coming.
- Chris showed up with lots of towels. He and I and Steve got busy.
(Sidebar: Steve read this and said that he was the one who got to the bathroom first. He's probably right. Memory is such a funny thing. That would explain why, when I said that I don't remember what I saw under the sink… it's because he had already looked at it. But I know I looked too 🙂 – and I'm sure I suggested that he go outside to turn off the water. I think.)
We had the majority of the water off of the floor before Rick and Juan got here, by around 9:10 PM. All things considered, that was pretty fast.
This is the culprit. The (naked) end of the black plastic hose should be connected to the thing at the top of the oval knob on the left. That is the hot water supply. With the hose off, and the water on, water shot up and to the right like a hot geyser.
We store our toilet paper in this area. It's funny, but as we were sopping up the mess I kept wondering what the little bits of paper were. It was the toilet paper that was dispersed with the water! Weird.
The bathroom and kitchen sink fixtures are top of the line. We got them not at a big box store, but at a local plumbing supply. I love them. However, Rick said that he's seen this sort of problem once before with the same sort of fixture. The connector on these is different. We may be changing our sink fixtures, to ones with an old-school sort of connector. For now, the water is turned off in both bathrooms and (most of the time) to the kitchen fixture.
By 10:00, all of the water was sopped up, Rick and Juan were gone, and Steve and Chris and I had fortified ourselves with a bit of good scotch. All of us had fingers crossed that we had gotten the water up soon enough to save the floors.
Got up this morning to realize that the floor (in half the hallway, our bedroom, and my studio) is toast. I took photos. With the flash, the color is good but it's harder to see the damage.
The color is bad, but you can see that the edges of the planks are curling up:
You know, this floor cost too much money to live with it this way. I have no idea how they are going to get it off of the slab (because the glue is more than strong) but there must be a way.
We went to OKC this morning to visit Steve's family. We came home to many, many loads of wet towels.
I have a blog post already written for Monday morning so you won't see news of this in that post. I will, however, let you know what happens.
Piece O Cake Blog 
Oh, I am so sorry for both the leak and the damaged it caused. What a night; what a sight. I hope the repairs go well.
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Just so everyone is clear on this, after our conversation about the dishwasher, Becky still heard water running, so she asked me whether I had left the shower running. This was a ludicrous suggestion, but she and I went to the bathroom in different directions, I going to the shower and she to the vanity. The shower was not running, but there was hot water all over the floor, which was spewing from the hot water feed to the sink. I tried unsuccessfully to close the quarter-turn cut off (I am still not sure why it didn’t work), and at that point, Becky screamed TURN IT OFF OUTSIDE. I guess because I am a guy I am supposed to know how to turn the water off to the entire house. I am, and I do, so I did. It was a hell of a mess.
Becky says to say that we are on our 6th load of towels. Plus we had 5 full loads of water from the shop vac. Lots of water on the floor.
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Becky,
So sorry that you had this problem…the remodel seemed to go so smoothly.
Maybe I can cheer you up: I just read your new book and I learned 4 things that are going to make my applique much more enjoyable. 1) The way you tell to hold the needle; 2) The tinier seam allowance to turn under (duh!); 3) All the pinning you demonstrate around the edges; 4)the toothpick for tricky corners. Thank you so much for writing this book.
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Bummer on the water …..see what the insurance guy says…. as it will cost more to fix I bet then it did last month.
One step at a time and it will eventually be put back together.
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Oh no, after all that work and everything looking so nice. Fingers crossed for you that your insurance company can sort it all out.
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So sorry to hear this Becky and Steve. Oh my, your remodel is so beautiful; what a bummer. I hope the repairs go smoothly.
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Oh dear! And just as everything was back to normal and so beautiful! Cross my fingers for a quick resolution and fix!
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Becky, I have been reading your remolding posts. Your contractor has used cheap plastic hoses. He should have use metal ones. I can tell you lots of horror stories about plastic hoses. Change out the ones behind your washer also please. In Plano it is now code to use metal hoses when one is replaced.
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A similar thing happened to me about 15 years ago. I heard running water through the baby monitor (our daughter was about 1 year old, and her bedroom was next to the bathroom). I thought someone had broken into our house and was taking a shower! I went to check and discovered the toilet tank had developed a crack (it was original to our 1937 house) and was spewing water everywhere. Fortunately, the threshold at the bathroom door held back the water, but if I hadn’t found it when I did, it would have flowed over onto the hardwood floors. I got a remodeled bathroom out of that experience!!!
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No, the plastic hoses are actually part of the fixture. Its supposed to make them better!
It looks to me like the end of the hose, where theres supposed to be a ring and then the metal part that screws to valve, has come off. We havent found it yet. I suppose it could have gotten sucked up with the water.
Rick wants to replace these with a kind of fixture that can accept a better hose. Thats happening tomorrow.
Sent from my iPad, please forgive typos.
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OMG….we are in the middle of a remodel and I can’t imagine the pain and how bad I would feel if I had a disaster like this right after finishing the project. My sympathy!
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This is so sad. I am very sorry. I hope it all get fixed really fast.
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I’m so sorry this happened. I hope everything can be fixed quickly.
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Becky – so sorry to hear this. Having recently had a sink backup from a clog in our washing machine discharge.. which dumped about 2 -3 washers full of water all over my studio – I can relate!!! This happened a couple of months ago and we are still in the process of repair. Walls needed to be repaired, carpeting taken up, and the Pergo floor replaced. This was only from about 1 1/2 inches of water. The insurance more than covered the damage.. but it is so upsetting! Good luck and my heart goes out to you!
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Thank you, Mary! That does indeed bring a smile to my face :-).
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Thank you, Debra – and to all who have written. Its surprising, isnt it, how often this sort of thing happens?
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Becky…..don’t rush out and tear up the floor just yet. Spend some time running fans over it to dry out and see if the boards don’t lie back down… I’ve had that happen with an old oak floor…..good luck…arden
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Oh, would that fans would do it. We did run them for two days, and a dehumidifier. This is an engineered wood which is a fancy way of saying plywood. The top ply is not going to go back into place. Solid wood might have behaved differently but in our area, on a slab, they dont recommend solid wood be glued down.
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Oh, Becky! After everything looked so perfect !!! I suppose it’s better to work out the bugs now, but that’s just awful. Hope it can all be repaired quickly. I know you must feel sick about this!
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OUr kitchen sink overflowed and the hardwood floor curled at the edges of several boards. Once completely dry the boards flattened and our floor was fine. Hope that happens to your floors.
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I hope your homeowners insurance will help cover the damage. And, is the contractor responsible? Anyway, hope it all works out for you.
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How unfortunate. And your remodel was going so well. I am sad to hear this. Make sure the manufacturer of those plumbing parts know about your mishap, they need to know! Actually I would say it’s their fault too (defective parts). I know this is difficult to accept, but years from now you will laugh at this. Hang in there.
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Our contractor is maybe the best in the world! Hes already had a plumber out to re-do all the fittings. That seemed prudent since one already failed and they are all the same kind. Miguel and Juan are taking out the bedroom floor as I speak and the insurance adjustor should be calling soon to schedule a visit. As water disasters go, this one is not nearly as bad as it could be.
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So sorry to hear about the water/floor damage and good to read your contractor is right back working to fix the mess. He probably has other jobs lined up but yours is taking precedence for him right now.
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I am so sorry. The remodel was so pretty and I know you were so happy to have it finished. At least you don’t have a big family event soon I hope. We always try to look for the good in these situations don’t we?
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Oh, how horrible. Thank goodness you were home. I could not imagine what it have been like if y’all were out of town for the weekend.
I have enjoyed the remodel posts–so pretty.
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Oh how I feel for you. We had just gotten our Other House all fixed up for sale when a toilet ran all over the floors for almost a week. Best thing we did (after two days of vacuuming up water from floors and carpet ourselves) was call the insurance company and they sent out Servpro right away to test for moisture and remediate. Good thing we did because in that short time mold was starting to grow everywhere. Apparently after 48 hours they have to consider it grey water. We were just lucky it wasn’t sewage! The concrete was saturated and all the sills were wet so they opened up the walls to knee height to dry it all out, threw out the vanity, tore out the carpet and ripped up the vinyl. (sigh) But the Allstate adjustor was fabulous and now it’s all fixed and looking new again. Best wishes for a quick resolution for you!
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Oh, my. Im sorry you had to go through that. Our mess is not nearly so messy.
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