For reference, here in South Florida, water plumbing is not laid under the house in the ground: instead, the pipes go up into the attic and are distributed on the rafters to different bathrooms/kitchen where they drop down the walls. (that’s for single-story homes; not sure about multiple floors). Then the insulation is laid over the pipes, burying the pipes.
Our home is 15 years old. Two weeks ago water started leaking heavily in our small bedroom from the ceiling, enough to fill a small trash can in an hour.
Plumber comes in immediately, cuts openings in the ceiling and adjoining wall and repairs the leak (cuts out and replaces a 2-feet piece of the copper pipe). He claims bad pipes were used – shows me green color patches on the pipe as sign of ‘rust’. He says I should replace all the pipes, over the entire home, at least the part in the attic (not in the walls), and gives me an estimate for that job : $4k. (which will not be covered by insurance).
He also calls in a partnering ‘water damage clean’ firm for me, who come in same evening, take a look, and say they need to dry the room with fans and heat, and advise me that the drywall of room walls and ceiling should be replaced to avoid mold. The drying operation takes 3 days. Insurance assessor comes in to check, seems to think it was not as major a damage as claimed, but still approves around $3k for the entire reconstruction of replacing a wall, ceiling and the insulation.
But yesterday, a drywall contractor comes in, and pooh-poohs all that doom-and-gloom. He tells me that I don’t really need to replace the entire wall/ceiling. He says there’s no sign of mold (which is what I have been feeling), and he can just repair the area that has the holes cut open. He feels the plumber and the water-damage guys overstated their case just to inflate their bills.
So now I have two questions –
Our home is 15 years old. Two weeks ago water started leaking heavily in our small bedroom from the ceiling, enough to fill a small trash can in an hour.
Plumber comes in immediately, cuts openings in the ceiling and adjoining wall and repairs the leak (cuts out and replaces a 2-feet piece of the copper pipe). He claims bad pipes were used – shows me green color patches on the pipe as sign of ‘rust’. He says I should replace all the pipes, over the entire home, at least the part in the attic (not in the walls), and gives me an estimate for that job : $4k. (which will not be covered by insurance).
He also calls in a partnering ‘water damage clean’ firm for me, who come in same evening, take a look, and say they need to dry the room with fans and heat, and advise me that the drywall of room walls and ceiling should be replaced to avoid mold. The drying operation takes 3 days. Insurance assessor comes in to check, seems to think it was not as major a damage as claimed, but still approves around $3k for the entire reconstruction of replacing a wall, ceiling and the insulation.
But yesterday, a drywall contractor comes in, and pooh-poohs all that doom-and-gloom. He tells me that I don’t really need to replace the entire wall/ceiling. He says there’s no sign of mold (which is what I have been feeling), and he can just repair the area that has the holes cut open. He feels the plumber and the water-damage guys overstated their case just to inflate their bills.
So now I have two questions –
- Can I do limited repair of the drywalls instead of whole-sale replacement? I intend to spray the insides with a mold-killer like Concrobium Fungicide from HD, just for peace of mind. Even if some of the drywall was soaked that day, it did dry for 3 days, and I do intend to remove/replace the entire panel surrounding that hole, but just not the whole wall.
- Is replacing all the copper pipes (with ‘better quality pipes’) at all warranted? Since I don’t know why it suddenly leaked now, I dunno if any more leaks could happen, so there’s a bit of nervousness. Is there a way to check? I examined the pipe that was cut out - the hole was at a joint, causing a very tiny but steady stream of water.
(A neighbor had a much bigger problem couple of years ago – a leak took out her bedroom, followed by another leak in another room. Cost her insurance $40k, so they dropped her policy and she just sold the house in frustration. And since it’s the same constructor for my home, it adds to my nervousness)
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