Sandy vs. Ceiling



Yay! Another home improvement post since I know at times they can be few and bar between! While Justin and I were gallivanting around Europe, Superstorm Sandy was making it's way through the Northeast. Although we didn't get hit as bad as New Jersey and New York, the DC metro area was hit with its share of stormy weather. That stormy weather brought rain...a lot of rain. The amount of rain we received coupled with the intensity of it cause our roof to leak again, specifically in our new kitchen addition. It seems like we can't get a break when it comes to leaks, since I've discussed leaks on two separate instances here and here.

Here's some shots of the bubbly damage. Don't mind the mismatched paint. That is due to our contractor trying to touch up the paint, but using the wrong color/type. That's a whole other story all together...

Luckily, my sister was home dog-sitting, so she was able to do some damage control by preventing the further spread of the water.  With the careful placement of buckets and puppy pads, our cabinets weren't ruined and our floors were still in tact. Can you imagine if we we had come home to the storm damage without any of my sister's preventative measures? I'm sure it would've been a lot worse.

After some careful thought, Justin and I decided that it would be best if we filed an insurance clam.  We figured the amount of damage exceeded our deductible. The adjuster came a few days later, provided a write up, and told us that our water damage did exceed our deductible.  Our experience with the claims process was running smooth; however, instead of the insurance company finding a contractor to do the repairs, it was our job to find someone to fix the damage within the cost of our deductible. Justin did some research and decided on Carl's Home Improvement because he gave us the best price compared to other estimates we received.  In addition, he could start the project right away.

Here are some shots of the work in progress...

When he replaced the damaged drywall on the ceiling, he discovered that our former contractor didn't install the drywall properly. He didn't screw the drywall sheets in properly, and otherwise did a haphazard job. Why am I not surprised?

The cool thing about Carl was that after he starting working, he discovered that he didn't have to replace entire sheets of drywall.  Carl was able to just patch up the damaged parts, which resulted in him lowering our price, and finishing a day early! Because he was already under budget and ahead of schedule, we asked if he could could repleace our island light fixture with one that we picked up a few months ago.

So now instead of this little, ugly light fixture:

We have this:

It glows like a UFO. ;) It's a new light fixture to match our chandelier over our dining table. Here are some shots of the finished product.

Crack free ;)

The water damaged parts are all patched up, the ceiling is all painted uniformly, and all is good in the Briones household. :)

Raze the Roof

Last weekend we got a new roof after we sprung a leak the week before.  

To refresh your memory, this is what our old roof looked like--the original roof!

Here are some pictures of the new roof (excuse the finger in the shot, its not mine it's the roofer's :)

They had to completely strip the old tin roof and replace it with new (modern) material

These pictures were taken when the roof was nearly done.  After these shots were taken, the roof was painted.

Anyway, I'll let the pics from my roofer's website do the talking since I'm not expert:

Here's hoping that our new roof will last us another 100 years!

When it Rains, It Pours...

Apparently in my closet :(

Let me start from the beginnning. 

Unbeknownst to us, last Tuesday night/Wednesday morning the DC area was about to experience some very heavy rain fall.  We are no strangers to the weird weather.  From Snowmaggedon two years ago to the hurricane winds of this past summer, DC weather runs that gamut and our house has been able to handle it all...until now.

While Justin and I were sleeping I woke up at 5:00am when I heard a noise.

plip, plip, plip

I smacked Justin to to wake him up (I swear between him and Louie, they can both sleep through anything!). He turned on the light and we looked around. It wasn't Louie, but it was coming from the room.  I walked toward my closet and sure enough there was water dripping from the ceiling, which was obviously coming from the roof. Arrrggghh!  This was something I defnitely didn't feel like dealing with especially at 5:00am.  After finding the leak, we moved all my clothes into the next room, put wastebaskets and towels in my closet, and hoped for the best--after all, we had to go to work. 

This a view of the leak in the closet looking up

While I was at work I imagined the entire ceiling caving in on our bedroom, but luckily the rain didn't seem to get any harder as the leak was contained in that area.

Over the weekend we got a roofer to check out the damage.  When he arrived he didn't even bother to look at the leak.  He brought out his super tall ladder and went straight to the roof.

When he came down I asked him what was wrong with our roof.  He basically said that it was the original roof and the entire thing needed to be replaced. Wow, since our house was built in 1910 I'm surprised that the roof has lasted that long!

This didn't really come to a surprise to Justin and I because when we did our home inspection, the inspector said that our roof was "at the end of its useful life"  and that it would have to be replaced soon, or given the current situation--now.

Here's a picture of our roof taken from our home estimate last year:

The roofer then gave us an estimate, which all things considered was cheaper than we thought.  We were expecting a new roof to cost somewhere in the $10K range, but let me just tell you that the number that he gave is definitely no drop in the bucket!

Water Damage Repaired?

Remember a few months ago I told you guys about the leak in our bedroom room (from our air conditioner) that dripped all the way down to the living room?  Well, it looked like this:

After a few months of tolerating it (yes, we let it go for months, don't judge!), Justin was able to patch the water damage to make it good as new.  Sorry, I don't have any "action" shots of Justin repairing the wall, but just imagine him spackling, then priming, and then yelling about how the paint wasn't adhering to the newly spackled areas.  Despite his frustrations he was able to fix it. Yay! Sorry these aren't the best pictures.

But it looks like nothing ever happened right?

Justin even fixed the paint chipped areas behind the recliner.  I don't have any before pictures of the damage, but apparently when you would rock on the recliner it would chip away at the wall behind it. Whoopsy.

You would think that this would be the end of our "leakage" problems, but it's not.  Just when we thought we were in the clear, another problem had to rear its ugly head...more on that later...

Take a Peek, At the Leak (In Our Living Room)

With all the rain that the hurricanes and tropical storms brought this summer, who would have thought the leak in our ceiling would come from another source...the air conditioner. Or more specifically, the window unit air conditioner in our master bedroom (which just so happened to be above our living room).

Basically, the window unit in our bedroom leaked through the walls, all the way down to living room, causing the water damaged walls you see in these pictures. Yes, Justin was pissed, cursing the fact that we do not have central air, but what can you do?

We have since replaced the leaky window unit, with a much noisier one, but we won't be needing it for long anyways since it's getting cooler. Although we are curious to know whether the leak caused wood rot in our walls I don't think we're ready to demo the wall to find out. Yes, we are playing the "ignorance is bliss" card, but in the meantime we'll just patch up the water damaged part of the living room wall and call it a day.