Tuesday, August 02, 2005

Slab Leak Part V - Can It Get Worse?

Tuesday, close to noon, Gennaro's Plumbing showed up. They had two tech, the senior tech being Franco, placing what looked like an oversize stethoscope on the ground. Apparently, you listen for leaks in the slab. The techs first asked where the water was coming from (Apt 3 living room and Apt 1 kitchen) and then listened around those areas. They concluded that there is a leak in our apartment, in the kitchen, under the tile floor. They also concluded that there is a second leak under the tile in the middle of apartment one's kitchen. Also, there was possibly a leak near the toilet in the full bath of apartment one. Two, possibly three slab leaks! All at once! That would also mean that Monday evening's adventure was from a previously unknown slab leak. It was disheartening...

Gennaro's suggested that it would be cheaper to re-pipe the triplex rather than fixing the slab, especially since slab leak detection was not exact and the repair could cause secondary damage. All the jack hammer action may cause other problems, they said. I asked them to give me a quote; I should get a call from Old Republic within 24 hours. That afternoon I called Adee Plumbing. I've dealt with their computer system before and had worked with the owner during an upgrade. He was very helpful and suggested that he send a tech out the next day. I updated our Insurance company, who indicate he was planning on sending his own tech out, as well.

this is an audio post - click to play

Tuesday evening, on Cathy's suggestion, we called our insurance company, who indicated that they felt that they should take care of the damage immediately. They would send a restoration company out that same evening. The restoration company cleans up the water damage and dries out the carpet (and if necessary, the walls). They were very efficient and were set up in about 30 minutes. Our restoration tech indicated that everything should be dry by Thursday evening, and that our carpets should be completely salvageable. There are these big dehydrators with tubes running to our sinks, and large blowers to aerate the carpet. We'll be like this for three days... ugh.

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