Saturday, July 30, 2005

Slab Leak, Part III - Continued...

So last night Cathy & I were in apartment one looking at the kitchen and considering how to remodel the cabinet layout. We settled on this...



While we were kicking around the idea of an archway made of cabinets, John from apartment three comes to find us ans says his carpet is wet. At first he thought his cat did something bad, but there was just too much moisture.

"Oh, Lord", I thought to myself, "this is going to be expensive, huh? We shut off the water main, talked about it and prayed. I shut off the water main to prevent further damage. Then, Cathy remembered the home warranty our Realtor had negotiated, so we gave them a cal. Our home warranty is with Old Republic, and they indicated that it was Friday and weekend contractors are hard to reach. Without water service, it was considered a same-day service emergency, so we were authorized to call an outside contractor. We talked it over with John and decided the morning would be O.K.

So here it is, Saturday 07/30/2005, and I called Rapid Plumbing. The tech indicated it was a possible slab leak, and he told Old Republic as well. It turns out we have a $1000 cap on slab leaks, so anything over that comes out of our pocket. Rapid Plumbing wanted $375 for a leak detection and $19.95 for truck operating expenses. But, Rapid does give free estimates and would count the leak detection fees towards the cost of the repair. I sent them home and gave Old Republic a chance to find a contractor. Old Republic would call me as soon as they found someone.

I called back several times on throughout the day and each time I was promised someone would call me with some news. Nobody ever called, so I just kept calling Old Republic every couple hours. Finally, about 4 p.m. I spoke with someone and explained that life without water is very difficult, to which she replied, "you don't have water at all?"

Yes, that's right; it turns out nobody we had talked to previously had noted in their system that our water was completely off. Old Republic updated our call status to emergency service (sound familiar?) and told me they would call me in the morning.

I still had a kitchen to remodel, and not having water wouldn't stop that. I took down the top cabinets from the kitchen, then Cathy and I showered at 24-Hour Fitness, grabbed some dinner and called it a night.

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