Water Damage Repair Company?

Submitted by ShplaDOW t3_yd9etx in Connecticut

Does anybody have any recommendations on a good water damage repair company other than Serve Pro? Here's the story:

I live in Bristol. Home Depot came and installed our new fridge last week. They hooked up the metal water line to the back of the fridge and shoved it back in its spot (enclosed by cabinets) apparently causing a leak where the water line meets the fridge. This sprayed for 24hrs causing water to leak through the floor and into the downstairs ceiling. They were supposed to install a flexible water line according to the paperwork but did not. Our hardwood floors are warped, paint bubbled and falling off the ceiling and walls downstairs under where the fridge is, total nightmare. ServePro came and gave an estimate that says we need to be relocated for "a few months" for repairs which seems insane but they are saying to be relocated because they will be ripping up our living room kitchen floor and they need to take the cabinets out to do that. Does anybody have any experience like this, thoughts or recommendations on the situation? My wife is pregnant and we really don't want to be out of our house for "a few months" because of this. I don't know where else to turn as nobody I know has had experience with anything like this. We have a claim going with Home Depot but need to find the damage repair company and contractors to install floors and cabinets and whatnot. Any recommendations are appreciated. Thank you.

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Gil_V t1_itqrcqr wrote

You ought to call a local news TV station. I’ll bet your problem gets fixed in a weekend, and you get a nice hotel stay.

HD has enough cash to make “Home Depot forces expecting family to leave their home” off the 6:00 news.

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yudkib t1_its0u1r wrote

I don't want to be a Debbie Downer here, but I have worked in the restoration business. Nothing Servpro has said is wrong (aside from their timeline, which is a hair excessive, but not ridiculously so. They can't start work without an approved claim due to the way they run their business).

Under a homeowner's insurance policy you're entitled to "like kind and quality", meaning, if your floor goes under your cabinets, you're entitled to flooring that goes under your cabinets. If you have no transition strip between your kitchen floor and living room floor, you're entitled to have the living room floor replaced too. Basically, the work to repair your insurance claim can't devalue your house.

Doing a quick-and-easy flooring job is certainly possible, but if the subfloor starts rotting or delaminating and the cabinets shift, the story on the 6 o'clock news is just as likely to be "scumbag flooring contractor cons expectant couple with shoddy kitchen patch job." There's a right and wrong way to repair this damage - you can pan Servpro for being a little slow, but anyone who can fix this in less than 2 weeks will either be more expensive than insurance is willing to pay, or is going to do a lousy job that hurts the value of the house. There's no third option. This is a month of work plus the claim approval time to do it the right way.

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Synapse82 t1_itqxjjr wrote

I tend to agree with this, OP seems very patient. This is newsworthy, give them a call and watch Home Depot get a company to make this priority.

Hopefully worst case is a couple weeks in a hotel that is paid for.

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caolle t1_itqrs57 wrote

Call your insurance company. Let them deal with Home Depot for recompense. But the important thing is to get the stuff repaired.

Our old dishwasher leaked causing our hardwood floor to warp. The repair required our floor to be refinished and since it was the entry way to the entire place, we needed to be put up in a hotel for a week or two, so yeah unfortunately this is a real occurrence. We needed to hire a moving company to move things into storage. Putting us up and moving things into storage was all covered by insurance. Our adjustor also called Serv Pro to get things sorted with mold and drying things out.

It sucks that you're going through this, but it needs to be done.

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AhbabaOooMaoMao t1_itqy5m2 wrote

Don't use ServPro. Hire an actual home improvement contractor.

Make your homeowner's claims asap if you haven't.

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NLCmanure t1_itr0ugs wrote

I have some experience with this. My elderly Mother has one of those custom designed kitchens you see in magazines. She spent big $ on it. A few years after the kitchen was completed a water supply line to the kitchen sink developed a leak. It was a corrosion leak. Anyway, like you, it was a complete mess. hardwood floor was ruined. it buckled. subfloor was ruined. Downstairs was an unfinished basement so only had to clean up the wet floor. Cabinets had to come out. Granite tops had to be replaced. it was a nightmare.

Became more of a nightmare after contacting the insurance company. Insurance company recommended ServPro and some other outfit. Basically got the same thing as you did. I wasn't comfortable with them being in the house with nobody around. Didn't hire either one of them.

I contacted a contractor who did my master bath over and asked him to look over my Mother's kitchen which he did. Made several recommendations for local guys in my Mom's area. Long story short, the job got done to her complete satisfaction with finding the exact same granite color that she had before. She was concerned the granite color wouldn't match the cabinet finish.

So, might be best to be your own contractor and get some independents to do the work. I did a portion of the demolition work and disassembly and removal of the cabinets. It wasn't really that hard to do. Doing the rebuild and finish work I left to the pros. It looked like nothing happened when it was complete.

I wish you the best in this. it is very unnerving and huge disruption.

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stlouisbrowns t1_itrmyd1 wrote

Paul Davis Restoration out of West Hartford.

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Tarmogoyf2002 t1_itra3y8 wrote

ServePro won't clean or repair anything, they're a fan rental scam disguised as a cleaning company.

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