Dealing with major leak

[Clariman]

We've had a major leak in a holiday let, creating 4 inches of clean water across the whole ground floor. It built up in no more than 8 hours or so, while guests were out during the day, and they very kindly swept it all out later.

The floor is concrete with a layer or TLC vinyl (and underlay?).

What damage can we expect to find when we head there tomorrow? Is that likely to damage wooden legs of chairs, tables and kitchen floor-standing cabinets?

Also how long would it take a dehumidifier to dry it all out? It has open plan kitchen/living dining with hallway, understairs cupboard and WC.

Anything else we need to be aware of?

Thanks
C

[servodude]

We've had a major leak in a holiday let, creating 4 inches of clean water across the whole ground floor. It built up in no more than 8 hours or so, while guests were out during the day, and they very kindly swept it all out later.

The floor is concrete with a layer or TLC vinyl (and underlay?).

What damage can we expect to find when we head there tomorrow? Is that likely to damage wooden legs of chairs, tables and kitchen floor-standing cabinets?

Also how long would it take a dehumidifier to dry it all out? It has open plan kitchen/living dining with hallway, understairs cupboard and WC.

Anything else we need to be aware of?

Thanks
C

What bad luck!

First thing I'd do is record everything and (be ready to) notify your insurer.

Everything else is "it depends" - but the main goal is to get rid of the water and moisture as quickly as possible

Proper treated wooded stuff will be less affected than composite materials that are typically softer/more porous; it's not uncommon to see cabinetry that has swollen where it meets the floor just from moisture/condenstation over time
so if there's skirting/base boards under the cabinets i would be looking to see if you can take them off, that will let them dry faster and let any moisture that got behind out
- if the furniture legs are is proper finished wood you might have been lucky

The real big question is the floor and how much has got under the vinyl; this will be down to the fit and how it was installed/glued.
Again you might want to look at the skirting/edges as being particularly at risk.


A small domestic dehumidifier will pull about 10-14 litres a day out the air in ideal conditions - those conditions involve being warm enough to hold the moisture in the air - and will need emptied about 6 times in the process (though you might be able to attach a hose depending on where you can drain it to).
You can hire industrial stuff that works better, in lower temps, and can be targetted for drying floors; so check if you have an HSS branch locally (or a tool hire shop similar)
Actually, depending on what it looks like it might be worth seeing if there is a specialist flood/flooring recovery firm in the area?

Good luck
- sd

[jaizan]

Since all a dehumidifier does is remove humidity from the air, if you're in an area with good weather forecast, opening doors & windows ought to be at least as effective.
Noting that we're in August and there is a good weather forecast in some parts of the country.

I would bring along a few powerful fans to create some airflow, particularly in corners etc.

[Mike4]

I'd suggest the worst of the damage will be cosmetic. Furniture legs will dry out and continue to work perfectly well but the finish on them will be ruined. Water will soak up the plaster and spoil the paint finish or wallpaper. The floor will probably dry out fine but the skirtings will expand a bit and pop off, and and all paintwork below about 2ft will probably crack and peel slightly on drying out and need re-doing, leading to a complete ground floor redecoration being needed in the end.

All this will take a LONG TIME as you'll need it all to properly dry out before work can be completed. When similar happened to me (upstairs bathroom leak in an empty rental - tenant in hospital unknown to me), it took a couple of months to get the place dried out, redecorated and the tenant able to re-occupy.

[monabri]

I'd suggest the worst of the damage will be cosmetic. Furniture legs will dry out and continue to work perfectly well but the finish on them will be ruined. Water will soak up the plaster and spoil the paint finish or wallpaper. The floor will probably dry out fine but the skirtings will expand a bit and pop off, and and all paintwork below about 2ft will probably crack and peel slightly on drying out and need re-doing, leading to a complete ground floor redecoration being needed in the end.

All this will take a LONG TIME as you'll need it all to properly dry out before work can be completed. When similar happened to me (upstairs bathroom leak in an empty rental - tenant in hospital unknown to me), it took a couple of months to get the place dried out, redecorated and the tenant able to re-occupy.

Similar...rental flat, leak from the property above ( twice!). Plaster had to be stripped from the walls affected...tenant was moved out for 6 weeks while the dehumidifiers ran. A new bathroom that had been installed ( tiles, all fixtures) was stripped out leaving just the tiled floor. It was an insurance job. The cost was set to OUR insurance . The owner of the flat claimed on their insurance for a brand new kitchen..strange really when the leak was from pipes below their floor, gravity acts differently around their flat ( they got paid , installed the new kitchen and immediately sold the flat! ).

I did feel that the insurance company 'over egged ' the remedial work.

[Dicky99]

I'd be inclined to use a couple of inexpensive Sensor Blue data loggers from Amazon to monitor the humidity levels and then employ a combination of heat and ventilation to get the moisture levels down quickly.
Many elements will cope okay with becoming wet when dried out quickly but be mindful of any voids where moisture may persist.

Dehumidifiers can work well in a defined space e.g. a sealed room where you are only pulling moisture from that space. Less so for large open plan or less sealed spaces where you could be just extracting moisture from the world at large.

[88V8]

We've had a major leak in a holiday let, creating 4 inches of clean water across the whole ground floor. It built up in no more than 8 hours or so, while guests were out during the day, and they very kindly swept it all out later.

I would think that with an 8 hour exposure you may be at the less apocalyptic end of the damage scale.

Big dehumidifier, and as Servo said, take the kick boards off the kitchen cabinets.

V8

[Howard]

If you find that the damage is severe enough to involve expensive remedial work, my advice would be to contact your insurer immediately and engage with them to get a loss adjuster or approved repairer to look at the property as quickly as possible.

There is an understandable desire for someone in your position to try and solve all the issues yourself as an "amateur". Insurance companies and their agents are dealing with these issues thousands of times a year and they should be able to give you the best advice to mitigate the damage.

If the damage is severe, they will give you advice which will help you to make sure you are covered for all the actions required. They may send a recommended trade operation to help you fairly quickly.

The problem is likely to be bureaucratic and you may have to be persuasive to get quick action. As someone with experience of dealing with a modest leak, I found it useful to take lots of photos and to use them to persuade the insurer that it was in their best interest to get things done speedily where that was possible. However, it will take time!

Hopefully, as 88V8 suggests above, the damage will not be too great. Wishing you success in dealing with the problem, a sympathetic insurer (they do exist!) and hopefully not too long a process in taking all the remedial action.

Howard

[mc2fool]

We've had a major leak in a holiday let, creating 4 inches of clean water across the whole ground floor. It built up in no more than 8 hours or so, while guests were out during the day, and they very kindly swept it all out later.

Well it'll be interesting to see what you find, 'cos, while it's possible of course (depending on the house), 4 inches is an awful lot and not what can be easily "swept out" -- unless they had a Niagara deluge when the opened the front door and then just swept out the rest over a short front door threshold. With luck you'll hopefully find there's been some exaggeration about it, albeit almost certainly not intentional.

(A decade or two back my washing machine overflowed while I was out and the downstairs flat called the Fire Brigade and the cops, fearing that something bad had happened to me when they got no response from banging on my door. When I returned the FB had gone but the cops were still there and told me that the water had been "2 inches deep across the whole floor" of the kitchen, and yet the carpet in the hall, just the other side of a 1cm high threshold, was still dry..... )

[Mike4]

The problem is possibly much worse because it is a holiday let. Whilst I would be happy to just sweep the water out and just live in it while it dries, and afterwards also be happy to tolerate the probable slight damage to the skirtings and low down paintwork, in a holiday let it just looks naff. Guests would spot the mild damage and guess what had happened and make assumptions about why not fixed up properly. So with a holiday let I think it needs putting back into 'perfect' condition even though that is a lot more effort.

[forgotusername]

I had a serious leak in a rental flat a few years back after the Tennant had moved out and it was unoccupied. The leak was on a mezzanine level on the first floor above a kitchen and lounge. The water then flooded the basement bedrooms and bathroom. All the furniture was ruined as were kitchen cupboards made of chipboard which just expanded.
I echo the advice to contact your insurer rather than try to fix it yourself. My repairs eventually cost about £20k. The flat was "unlettable" for a couple of months and required new kitchen, appliances, flooring, beds and bedding. The plaster walls retained a lot of water and I think they should have been hacked off and re-plastered but the insurers tradesmen did a cut price job and simply painted over the plaster.

Once all the work was done, we were able to sell the flat having informed the buyer that the leak had occurred.

[the0ni0nking]

On another thread I posted about a recent experience with a leak:

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=43103

However, that was more to do which policy to claim on on the insurance as opposed to dealing with the aftermath. I was out of the country and so all repair work and provision of information to the insurers was dealt with by my letting agent.

(Obviously, I had to initially speak with both the insurers and the letting agents, explained my situation and basically told them to get on with it due to the nature of the let - tenants were in situ and despite seeing videos of standing water/water coming through the floor etc they were "happy" to remain in situ. I think while lots of water might have leaked out, due to the fact they were there and that emergency repairs were done quickly (within 12 hours) it lessened the significance of the damage). More substantial remediation work was then done over the course of the next 7-10 days.

I haven't visited the property since (it remains let to the same tenants) but I have arranged to visit in conjunction with the letting agent when the existing tenants do vacate in around a months time. Only then will I likely get a real indication of what damage occurred and the quality of the repairs.

In my case the leak hit the lower ground floor (no property below) and hit laminate (which was ripped up to get to the source of the leak) as well as skirting/plaster. You'd hope the letting agent would have ensured it was all made good given it was an insurance job and the pictures I've subsequently seen do seem to support that but it's much harder to hide anything when you're there to inspect yourself as opposed to just reviewing pictures.

Hopefully any damage over such a short time frame will be limited - separately when I've had a leak from a water tank and the first sign of it is water on the ceiling below, we managed to catch it earlier enough that the water damage to the paint in the room below was negligible.

[scrumpyjack]

Assuming you have metered water, it is probably worth informing the water company and reading the meter. I found my supplier adjusted my bill so as not to charge me for a large accidental leak. They will do this as long as it doesn't happen too often.

You have presumably checked the flood did not reach any of the electrical wiring?

[stewamax]

When I had a burst pipe, I hired not a dehumidifier but a huge propane burner - the sort of thing sometimes used to dry out after major plastering.

[Mike4]

When I had a burst pipe, I hired not a dehumidifier but a huge propane burner - the sort of thing sometimes used to dry out after major plastering.

I'm surprised that made any difference. The exhaust fumes are (roughly) 50% water vapour. The heat would have helped but running that indoors would have ensured the atmosphere in there was laden with water vapour! (Unless it had some sort if flue ducting to outside.)

[servodude]

When I had a burst pipe, I hired not a dehumidifier but a huge propane burner - the sort of thing sometimes used to dry out after major plastering.

I'm surprised that made any difference. The exhaust fumes are (roughly) 50% water vapour. The heat would have helped but running that indoors would have ensured the atmosphere in there was laden with water vapour! (Unless it had some sort if flue ducting to outside.)

The last time I encountered major plastering they hired a mahoosive dehumidifier so that the humidity drop could be controlled - I suppose the ambient conditions might swing the choice of hardware

The last time I had a water leak we discovered because a retaining wall two doors down collapsed (it had been in a buried galv pipe )

[Mike4]

I'm surprised that made any difference. The exhaust fumes are (roughly) 50% water vapour. The heat would have helped but running that indoors would have ensured the atmosphere in there was laden with water vapour! (Unless it had some sort if flue ducting to outside.)

The last time I encountered major plastering they hired a mahoosive dehumidifier so that the humidity drop could be controlled - I suppose the ambient conditions might swing the choice of hardware

The last time I had a water leak we discovered because a retaining wall two doors down collapsed (it had been in a buried galv pipe )

I think on reflection, in soaking wet building the humidity is likely to be way higher than 50%, so running the massive propane burner probably did help. Just not as much as a massive dehumidifier might have...

[UncleEbenezer]

I'd suggest the worst of the damage will be cosmetic. Furniture legs will dry out and continue to work perfectly well but the finish on them will be ruined.

Agreed.

But worth noting, that kind of cosmetic damage can be repaired - though it's not (for most of us) a DIY job (unless you can get away with a lick of paint). Well worth it if the furniture is decent quality and wasn't about to be replaced anyway.