When you buy a new home, everything is bliss. Our old home was a 30+ year mobile home that had definately seen better days. Just over 3 years ago, we purchased a brand new home to replace the old one. Who knew that after just over a year of getting settled, a nightmare would begin.
We'd lived in our home nearly 2 years when I called the manufacturer to repair a cracked pan in our master shower. Things seemed to go well with the repair and we were back to living life.
A few months later, I noticed a slight odd odor coming from our laundry room. No one else noticed it for Months and my husband told me I was crazy. I assumed the problem was with our washing machine... I pulled it and the dryer from the wall, cleaned the walls, floor and back of the machines - finding nothing out of the ordinary, switched detergents, cleaned the seals and the tub... still the odor would come and go.
Late last fall the smell got worse and my husband and I crawled around until we noticed a light colored water mark coming through the blue paint on the wall, between the washer and our HVAC unit. He went under our house to find a large amount of water accumulated, that seemed to be coming from The Shower!
The final diagnosis.... the tiles in the shower were incorrectly repaired and water had been leaking through the grout...
into our living room on the opposite side of the wall... hidden behind a 3 section wall unit bookcase! This section remains so the team can hopefully clean the bottom of it and I can look into having it repaired. It was saturated with water - our nice, new, wooden bookcase that was intended to last 'forever' - and the joints have separated quite a bit now that it's dried out.
This hole in the wall is where we can turn the shower on and watch the water "flow" into the wall and under the shower.
Good bye lovely shower... and how much of the floor, we still do not know.
So back to the laundry room...
At the request of the mold eradication team, we had our HVAC (A/C unit) removed yesterday. And we found This Mess! The condensation drain in the unit was clogged, and the water was "draining" back onto the floor! Arugh... so the water mark was water that was soaking through the wall from the A/C... not run off from the shower! How much floor is damaged here, we still do not know.
The really crazy thing about all of this... is that we discovered one because of the other. I can not imagine having to tear our house apart twice to fix each problem separately. This weekend, we moved out of the laundry, master bath, 1/3 of our master bedroom and 1/4 of our living room to make way for the installation of Plastic Walls - being framed and put into place as I write this!!!!! :) :) :)
I have never been so OK to be without a washer and dryer before. Or to be a family of 4 sharing a single bathroom.
I am looking forward to their return. I am looking forward to the possibility of using the shower in the master bath for the first time since early November. I am looking forward to having our A/C replaced before the tempature in the Central Valley starts to rise. I am looking forward to walking in our back door and being greeted by the smell of dryer sheets and not an odd odor. I am looking forward to not seeing blue tape and saran wrap plastered to our living room wall.
The past few months have been an emotional roller coaster for us all. I am so appreciative of my husband for sticking with me during melt downs and panic attacks, for reminding me, "we have a roof over our head, and we can fix this," over and over again!
Please stay tuned for updates! I was so excited about demo day starting today that I couldn't sleep last night! I am bursting at the seams with excitement and so ready to be able to move on with our lives! More to come, I promise! :)
Ah-ha! Update #1!
The wall/dust screen in our bedroom is up! They're now setting one up in the living room... ahh... I must be crazy, who would be Excited to live in a construction zone?! :)
6 comments:
Who else would be excited by a construction zone in their home? ME!! Remodeling our bathroom had me so excited I couldn't sit still. Mostly because I was getting rid of the hideous old bathroom.
Glad you found the source of the problems, and I'd say that manufacturer owes you some bookshelves!
I sure hope the manufacture is footing the bill!!
It would seem that we should deserve some assistance... however the mfgr filed Chapter 11 about 3 weeks after I reported the first sign of a water mark. And... since a "3rd party is directly at fault", our homeowners bid us good day... :(
OYE!! At least you have a contractor doing your repairs. We've been living with one bathroom for over a year now.. First it was the front bath that was under construction, now we've been out of our master bath and bedroom since January and I still can't get Jim to hire someone to help him. This baby is going to come and my house is a dusty dump, and she has no room. I keep trying to stay out of the house just to avoid the urge to NEST since I can't nest in this mess. I hope you enjoy construction more than me!
Like Chris keeps telling me... "we've got a roof over our heads, we'll get this fixed." We'll both be back in our bathrooms before we know it! Good luck to you!
Wow, looks like you have had a few challenges. Great to see you staying so positive through all of this. Good luck! And thanks for your comment about the feed sack bags. I love her tutorial.
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