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My Life, Right Now: Water Leaks, Rotting Wood, and Mold in the Walls

 Posted by on 7 December 2012 at 11:00 am  Personal
Dec 072012
 

On the one hand, my office and bathroom are hazmat sites. On the other hand, I have a kickin’ new haircut.

Yup, that’s the plastic wall of the office hazmat site behind me.

The source of the water was discovered yesterday. Basically, with every shower, water was pouring into the floor underneath the tub from the seam between the tub and the tile above. We’d never noticed it before, but it must have been happening for quite some time, given that mold was growing in the baseboard (!) of the office wall below.

Downstairs, the drywall on that wall of the office has been torn down; the structure behind it is being dried and disinfected. Then new drywall will be installed.

Upstairs, the tub and all the tile is being torn out. The whole area will be dried out and disinfected. The floor will be replaced, as the wood is terribly rotten. In place of the tub, I’m going to install a walk-in shower. That was something I’d planned to do soon, and… well… no time like the present!

Also, in the course of checking for mold in the office, we discovered a leak in the foundation. That doesn’t surprise me: I suspected such a problem, but I’d just never done much about it. (Stupid, I know.) That happened on the southeast side of the house a few years ago, and we put in a trench and a sump pump to deal with future seeping. That’s worked well, so that’s the plan for this northwest side of the house now too.

The whole episode has been a small nightmare, but I’m working with a good company, and I expect that life Chez Hsieh will be back to normal sometime in early 2013.

I took some pictures of the damage from the water leaks today (Friday, 12/7), and I just uploaded them here. Enjoy!

We still don’t know whether insurance will cover the repairs, as I haven’t yet been able to talk to my adjustor. GRRRR.

 My Life, Right Now: Water Leaks, Rotting Wood, and Mold in the Walls  Add comments
  • William H. Stoddard

    Other than the glasses, that cut and color make you look strikingly like Willow Rosenberg. . . .

  • http://www.facebook.com/john.price.1690671 John Price

    When I redecorated both my bathrooms I used only pressure treated lumber and moisture resistant drywall or tileboard over treated plywood. Good luck. It is a very nice haircut.

  • c_andrew

    Diana, If you are going to tile your walk-in shower instead of using an insert, you probably ought to use wonderboard – as it is stronger and while not waterproof, will not collapse under water saturation like drywall does. (Wonderboard is the brand name for a concrete & fiberglass panel.) When we did upper end houses, we would put a drypack foundation under the tile in the shower (dry pack is a cement mix that has only enough water to hold together rather than flow so you can pack it to the appropriate slope for the tile installed on it) with a vinyl moisture barrier that went up the walls behind the wonderboard about 6 inches higher than your exit step. We’d also use a dual drain – one that drains from above the tile, of course but also has a secondary drain above the vinyl substrate to provide egress for any moisture that wicks through the grouting. You begin nailing the wonderboard to the walls studs above the height of your exit step so that in the event the drain backs up, it will go onto your bathroom floor rather than into your bathroom walls. Good luck with the water damage. It’s no fun and smells pretty bad.

  • kurtcooksalot16

    I really hope that some of the plumbing problems don’t create water problems for the rest of the house. It would be so bad to have mold and rotting wood. I don’t think that there is much water coming from the pipes right now so I am good for now. http://www.allleakingshowers.com/faqs

   
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