Cynthia,
The house was inspected. I'll have my son find the contract so I can look at it. I was
there during
the inspection and recall discussion about what, if anything, was under the house. I'm
not sure how
good it would do to pursue this avenue since there was no way of checking.
What's bad, this will be his 2nd claim with insurance and he's only owned the
house a few months. At
the time of the inspection, there was no gas turned on at the house, so the furnace &
hot water
heater couldn't be inspected. Both were newly installed, so we didn't think there
could be a
problem. Both are located over his kitchen with access through the living room (via a
ladder we
bought him as a house warming gift). Within a week after moving in he woke up to find
water all over
the kitchen & the ceiling falling down. He had enough sense to climb above and turn
off the water to
the water heater. Within a few hours the insurance company sent a crew to clean up the
damage & put
fans & humidifiers in the kitchen to dry things up. (That alone cost $600). Meanwhile,
the guy he
bought the house from showed up to fix something that was supposed to be fixed before
closing, but
wasn't. He found there was a cracked connection in the water line & fixed that
while he was there.
State Farm sent Nick a check for the cleanup & the estimate to replace the ceiling
& other damage,
less the $500 ded. of course. He paid the company that dried out the kitchen & we
figured a way to
repair the ceiling etc. ourselves. I had just finished painting a few days before the
current
situation :-)
Poor kid is ready to move and says he'll never buy another house again!
----- Original Message -----
From: "Cynthia Turk" <cynthia.turk(a)juno.com>
To: <ohgen(a)rootsweb.com>
Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2009 10:47 PM
Subject: Re: [OHGENWEB] Voting Results
Linda,
A good dowser would likely be able to find the leak. It is
probably saturating the ground under the house. Taping the pipes inside
the house probably would not be of much use. To prevent, one must know
it is going to happen and let the water run a bit all the time when the
ground is starting to freeze deeper than about a foot. If the house was
inspected and certified when your brother bought the house, is it
possible the inspector company, which should be bonded and insured, have
to pay? It would depend on what they should have found and what the
contract says. My dad was a landlord and we dealt with frozen pipes all
the time.
Good luck!
Cynthia in Lake County