House #25: (Bad) Surprise!

September 3, 2011 · 5 comments

I previously mentioned the difficulty we were having removing the old hardwoods on The Drought House, but those sorts of minor issues are pretty typical. Unfortunately, we had another issue yesterday that was neither minor nor typical…

I got a call Friday night from my project manager — who had gotten a call from one of my contractors — that there was a “leak” in the house. Turns out that it was much more than just a leak — apparently a pipe had burst beneath the concrete slab/foundation of the house and water was coming up through the concrete and into the house.

They got the water turned off at the meter, the water cleared from the first floor and some fans set up to dry out the house. And I got a good GC friend of mine on the phone to get his plumber’s number (he’s my go-to guy for tough problems like this). His plumber will be coming by the house later today to try to diagnose where the problem is, and hopefully we can get it fixed in the next couple days.

For a project that is already skinny on profit, this wasn’t the best news, but this is the first major surprise we’ve had in about a year, and hopefully it won’t be too expensive. But, it’s a good reminder why we need to always be conservative when doing our financial analysis — you never know when something like this might happen and send us over budget.






5 responses to “House #25: (Bad) Surprise!”

  1. Luis says:

    I’ll leave the diagnosing to the plumber but if it is a broken pipe under the slab you might be better off running a new main line from the meter to the house. That’s what I ended up doing when I had the same problem. $800 fixed the problem. Glad to recommend a plumber if you need it.

  2. J Scott says:

    Hey Luis –

    The problem isn’t the main line. The problem is in the supply distribution from the main shutoff (in the house) to somewhere under the slab — though we don’t yet know exactly where. Unfortunately, replacing the main line isn’t going to fix the broken pipe under the slab…so the issue would remain.

    And I’m pretty sure that the plumber I’m using is the same one you use… 🙂

  3. Tough break. No pun intended. Hate it when these things happen. Glad to see that you handle it with a positive attitude and are proactive instead of just whining about it.

    This is absolutely why we buy with as big of a discount as possible.

    Hope you come through as just a minor setback.

  4. Luis says:

    Hmmm…I might have jumped the gun there but I am not sure I know all the details…

    I assumed since it’s a line underneath the slab that it was the main water line. But I suppose it could be one of the other lines if you are on a slab.

    Break out the jackhammer… 🙂

    P.S. – unlike the other 90% of my contractors I actually think my plumber did not come from you 😉

  5. J Scott says:

    Hey Luis,

    I’m actually using Aaron’s plumber, who I believe you use as well…so now we have more of the same contractors… 🙂

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