Interesting Xmas so far today...checking in on a neighbour's house as they were in Florida, and today walked into a major plumbing leak. We could hear it as soon as we walked in, and I said "I can smell the water!". Thought it was an upstairs toilet, but that was fine, so we got the the basement as quickly as possible to shut the main valve off...
Pipe that ran up the outside wall froze and burst....we got the water shut off quickly, but lots of damage done...
Basement flooded - thankfully their sump pump was working well, which kept the water level down to an inch or so deep...
Not sure how long the water was running, but we were there yesterday afternoon, so it was less than 24 hours between our visits.
So, called them in Florida and gave them the bad news. They are working on getting their insurance to get Winmar or some other restoration company to get in there. We did some clean-up to save family photos, baseball card collections, and stuff like that, but it's going to need a significant part of the house gutted. Their daughter was supposed to fly down yesterday to meet them down there, but their flights were delayed, so her and the son in law are taking over the effort, but we'll help out as needed of course. Not a very merry Xmas for these guys.
Make sure you turn off the water before you leave on vacation!
