Now know why people put off house maintance!

[firebirdgold]

It''s a lot like schrodinger''s cat. If you don''t touch the box you can pretend the cat is alive. If you open the box you now have to deal with a stinky decaying dead cat!

So I hired some contractor guy to do our ''honey do'' list for us. Completing items from the list seems to have the effect of adding things on to the ''project'' list. Like cleaning the gutters has lead to us realizing we need new gutters.

Well I asked them to do something simple: Clear out dh''s attempt to re-caulk the bathtub and to fix some crumbly grout. When they scraped out all of the caulk a bunch of water ran out of the wall from behind the tile!
Which means we can either A) re-caulk and prevent any more water leakage and worry about the wall at a later date or B) take off some tile and open up the wall to see what''s up, and worst case end up ripping out our master bath/shower, replacing most of the wall including studs, retiling the bathroom and I might as well get a new tub at that point.

I have to tell the contractors what to do and I just don''t know if I want to open the box!

 

[Erin]

You pull off the tile to see how bad it is.

it''s not that bad - you get new tile

it''s really bad - you save yourself from the spread of rot later on which ultimately will cost you more money than it does today

 

[lumpkin]

I feel your pain. Our house is about 40 years old so of course we have maintenance issues, too. You need to get the tile off. You don''t want mold growing behind it.

 

[sumbride]

Agree that it is best to deal with it now rather than later.


About 6 months after we moved into our house, I noticed a water spot on the dining room ceiling. It''s directly below the upstairs bathroom, so that seemed like the obvious culprit. I called the people that sold us the house because we still had a 1 year warranty. They came out, looked at it for about 3 minutes and said the bathtub needed to be recaulked. They did it. Then they painted over the ceiling, which of course didn''t match perfectly so it left a white square.

About 3 months later, I looked up again and said "hmm... there''s another stain on the ceiling." Called them again. They said "oh, we must have forgotten to prime over the stain." So they primed and repainted a slightly larger area. It still didn''t match. Bigger white squares on the ceiling.

Again about 2 months later I called them "hey, you must not have fixed it because now the stain is spreading." So they came over and cut the ceiling open and said "hmm... there''s some water on that pipe coming from the toilet!" (ARGHH!!!!) so they removed the toilet, reset it, glued, caulked, etc. Replaced the drywall square, mudded over it. Came back a couple days later to sand and prime. then paint. And yes, even more white squares. But that STILL didn''t fix it.

Oh, I was content for a while, sure we were done, but then one day I stepped in a big puddle of water in the hallway, directly below the skylight. It was pouring outside and water was dripping from the edge of the skylight! a-ha! It''s the skylight that is leaking! But no. An hour later, water started to pour through the a/c vents in the ceiling near the skylight. hmmm.... and THEN it started to pour through the MOLDING around the doorframe of the bathroom door, near the skylight! WHA??? Then I heard "trickle trickle trickle" and I put my ear up to the wall of the bathroom. I could hear water running THROUGH the wall! And yes, the dining room ceiling was wet. Well, Ta-DA! We had a freaking roof leak!!!

So Being well past our warranty period, I called them up and said "you know all those times you thought it was the bathroom? Well, it''s not. Can you come fix our roof? They did, though it was several days later, after we''d been emptying buckets and freaking out about the mold growing in the walls and such. We still haven''t fixed the woodwork around the door, or primed and painted the upstairs ceiling, but we haven''t found any evidence of mold. And the dining room ceiling is still a patchwork... but it''s an open floor plan, so we''ll have to have the entire first floor ceiling repainted to match it up. The ENTIRE thing. I''m thinking about installing a pressed tin ceiling in the dining area instead.

vent over!

So yeah, sometimes a little thing is not what it seems... get on it and figure it out before your roof caves in!

 

[lyra]

I''m super duper lucky because my husband is a master carpenter, home repairman, electrician, plumber and builder. Not his paying job, just his personal forte.

If you gently push the wall near where you found the leak, does it give a little, like it''s soft? That''s a sure sign you''ve got some damage that needs fixing. Likely you will have to redo the tile, drywall, the whole thing, including the plumbing problem that is causing the leak. Better now than later. The water could cause damage below the room, in the floor, ceiling of the room below, whatever.

 

[surfgirl]

Honey, I totally feel your pain! We live in a 1940 bungalow that had owners for decades that did the crappiest of patch jobs over patch jobs over patch jobs. So now, even the most seemingly simple of tasks seems to uncover a festering ooze of 60+ years of bad ideas and bad fix jobs. So a simple $500 job turns into "we need to rip out all the tile, assess the mold damage, fix it, re do the inside walls, THEN fix the grout..." Do it NOW and do it right the first time so you never need to deal with it again. Trust me, patching over bad patching just makes the next repair that much more expensive! It''s the price you pay for living in an old house, that''s how I rationalize it...

 

[lumpkin]

Date: 1/17/2008 9:23:37 AM
Author: sumbride
Agree that it is best to deal with it now rather than later.


About 6 months after we moved into our house, I noticed a water spot on the dining room ceiling. It''s directly below the upstairs bathroom, so that seemed like the obvious culprit. I called the people that sold us the house because we still had a 1 year warranty. They came out, looked at it for about 3 minutes and said the bathtub needed to be recaulked. They did it. Then they painted over the ceiling, which of course didn''t match perfectly so it left a white square.

About 3 months later, I looked up again and said ''hmm... there''s another stain on the ceiling.'' Called them again. They said ''oh, we must have forgotten to prime over the stain.'' So they primed and repainted a slightly larger area. It still didn''t match. Bigger white squares on the ceiling.

Again about 2 months later I called them ''hey, you must not have fixed it because now the stain is spreading.'' So they came over and cut the ceiling open and said ''hmm... there''s some water on that pipe coming from the toilet!'' (ARGHH!!!!) so they removed the toilet, reset it, glued, caulked, etc. Replaced the drywall square, mudded over it. Came back a couple days later to sand and prime. then paint. And yes, even more white squares. But that STILL didn''t fix it.

Oh, I was content for a while, sure we were done, but then one day I stepped in a big puddle of water in the hallway, directly below the skylight. It was pouring outside and water was dripping from the edge of the skylight! a-ha! It''s the skylight that is leaking! But no. An hour later, water started to pour through the a/c vents in the ceiling near the skylight. hmmm.... and THEN it started to pour through the MOLDING around the doorframe of the bathroom door, near the skylight! WHA??? Then I heard ''trickle trickle trickle'' and I put my ear up to the wall of the bathroom. I could hear water running THROUGH the wall! And yes, the dining room ceiling was wet. Well, Ta-DA! We had a freaking roof leak!!!

So Being well past our warranty period, I called them up and said ''you know all those times you thought it was the bathroom? Well, it''s not. Can you come fix our roof? They did, though it was several days later, after we''d been emptying buckets and freaking out about the mold growing in the walls and such. We still haven''t fixed the woodwork around the door, or primed and painted the upstairs ceiling, but we haven''t found any evidence of mold. And the dining room ceiling is still a patchwork... but it''s an open floor plan, so we''ll have to have the entire first floor ceiling repainted to match it up. The ENTIRE thing. I''m thinking about installing a pressed tin ceiling in the dining area instead.

vent over!

So yeah, sometimes a little thing is not what it seems... get on it and figure it out before your roof caves in!

What a mess! Glad you didn''t find mold, and even though it took them a year to finally fix the real problem, aren''t you glad you had that warranty??? When we bought our house the furnace/AC was over 20 years old and all the appliances were ancient so we put it in the terms of our offer. We were SO glad we did. It''s just a great insurance if you''re buying an older house.

 

[cnspotts]

Date: 1/17/2008 4:35:44 PM
Author: surfgirl
Honey, I totally feel your pain! We live in a 1940 bungalow that had owners for decades that did the crappiest of patch jobs over patch jobs over patch jobs. So now, even the most seemingly simple of tasks seems to uncover a festering ooze of 60+ years of bad ideas and bad fix jobs. So a simple $500 job turns into ''we need to rip out all the tile, assess the mold damage, fix it, re do the inside walls, THEN fix the grout...'' Do it NOW and do it right the first time so you never need to deal with it again. Trust me, patching over bad patching just makes the next repair that much more expensive! It''s the price you pay for living in an old house, that''s how I rationalize it...

Same here....feeling your pain too.

We bought a 1940''s stucco home....patch over patch pover patch. Do it right, do it now, love it long time!

 

[sumbride]

Date: 1/18/2008 2:39:46 PM
Author: lumpkin

Date: 1/17/2008 9:23:37 AM

Author: sumbride

Agree that it is best to deal with it now rather than later.



About 6 months after we moved into our house, I noticed a water spot on the dining room ceiling. It''s directly below the upstairs bathroom, so that seemed like the obvious culprit. I called the people that sold us the house because we still had a 1 year warranty. They came out, looked at it for about 3 minutes and said the bathtub needed to be recaulked. They did it. Then they painted over the ceiling, which of course didn''t match perfectly so it left a white square.


About 3 months later, I looked up again and said ''hmm... there''s another stain on the ceiling.'' Called them again. They said ''oh, we must have forgotten to prime over the stain.'' So they primed and repainted a slightly larger area. It still didn''t match. Bigger white squares on the ceiling.


Again about 2 months later I called them ''hey, you must not have fixed it because now the stain is spreading.'' So they came over and cut the ceiling open and said ''hmm... there''s some water on that pipe coming from the toilet!'' (ARGHH!!!!) so they removed the toilet, reset it, glued, caulked, etc. Replaced the drywall square, mudded over it. Came back a couple days later to sand and prime. then paint. And yes, even more white squares. But that STILL didn''t fix it.


Oh, I was content for a while, sure we were done, but then one day I stepped in a big puddle of water in the hallway, directly below the skylight. It was pouring outside and water was dripping from the edge of the skylight! a-ha! It''s the skylight that is leaking! But no. An hour later, water started to pour through the a/c vents in the ceiling near the skylight. hmmm.... and THEN it started to pour through the MOLDING around the doorframe of the bathroom door, near the skylight! WHA??? Then I heard ''trickle trickle trickle'' and I put my ear up to the wall of the bathroom. I could hear water running THROUGH the wall! And yes, the dining room ceiling was wet. Well, Ta-DA! We had a freaking roof leak!!!


So Being well past our warranty period, I called them up and said ''you know all those times you thought it was the bathroom? Well, it''s not. Can you come fix our roof? They did, though it was several days later, after we''d been emptying buckets and freaking out about the mold growing in the walls and such. We still haven''t fixed the woodwork around the door, or primed and painted the upstairs ceiling, but we haven''t found any evidence of mold. And the dining room ceiling is still a patchwork... but it''s an open floor plan, so we''ll have to have the entire first floor ceiling repainted to match it up. The ENTIRE thing. I''m thinking about installing a pressed tin ceiling in the dining area instead.


vent over!


So yeah, sometimes a little thing is not what it seems... get on it and figure it out before your roof caves in!

What a mess! Glad you didn''t find mold, and even though it took them a year to finally fix the real problem, aren''t you glad you had that warranty??? When we bought our house the furnace/AC was over 20 years old and all the appliances were ancient so we put it in the terms of our offer. We were SO glad we did. It''s just a great insurance if you''re buying an older house.

So glad! Our house is a 1920''s brick rowhouse, but it was gutted and renovated, so it''s a "new old house"... meaning the floor slants, and the walls are crooked, the boards creak and the bricks are uneven, but we do have new plumbing and wiring... but the new plumbing wasn''t put in perfectly. There were a couple of joints they simply "forgot" to glue until water came rushing out of them. Oops. Yeah. And yesterday morning there was water pouring in from the molding around the window of the upstairs back bedroom... so we need to do some caulking this weekend. The new parts of the house have settled into the old foundation and left some gaps. Ugh.

 

[firebirdgold]

These things really are like schrodinger''s cat, if you don''t open the box and deal with it now, the dead cat will only get stinkier and nastier to deal with!

(anyone see the Mythbusters where they put the dead pigs in a car and sealed it up? ewwww)


So we took the tiles off and there was just drywall behind them... soggy and crumbly drywall.

On the plus side the studs and other main structural bits are totally fine. Although I now wish they weren''t in such sterling shape!

I''d started to look on the bright side and was anticipating a totally new bathroom. This would be a huge bright side to me as the master bath is claustrophobic, inefficient, cheap looking, very ugly, and horribly dated. Unfortunately I also managed to momentarily forget that I was married.

*sigh* My dream of glass tile trim, maple console vanity with granite top, and a new floor all gone like mist on a bright summer day.

I wonder if I can convince him I have an allergy to vinyl flooring?

In revenge, I''m going to make DH go to the tile store with me today and choose our new tile for the bath surround. I''m also going to make him go car shopping with me this weekend. Hmmm, there has to be more shopping I can make him help me with....

I do try to look on the bright side of things, so at least we can get prettier tile for the tub. It''s a start.

 

[Julianna]

Glad you got a good look at those studs, now thank yourself for being creative enough to have a contractor do your honey-do list. That's brilliant.

Heaven knows your insurance company isn't going to help you out when you put in that claim for a longterm leak. That's a no-brainer, over the phone denial.

Also, kudos for the Schroedinger's cat reference. Nothing like a little quantum physics on a Monday, I always say.