If they need to cut open my floor, is house inhabitable or do we need to leave?

Kind of the next chapter in the leak under the house situation, but its a completely different question. I called insurance and they were *super* helpful and advised me about when and when not to make a claim.

So, now just waiting for the plumber who is coming this afternoon. They may end up needing to cut my floor open given how tight the crawl space is..I actually found out from insurance that this would be better for me as they are more likely to pay for the flooring repair costs. I am not sure if I should encourage them or not, but...if they do cut it open, I don't think they do anything to repair, right? And then I am stuck with an open floor until I can get someone to repair and since there has been a water leak underneath that sounds especially bad...so, does that mean we would need to leave the house until we can get it repaired or is there some quick service that makes it inhabitable?

Thanks!

I would ask those follow up questions to your agent. But, off the top of my head- I think living there would be fine and perhaps a Disaster Restoration Service would be your best bet to get things promptly put back together.

Insurance will guide you but in our experience (slab leak, where they had to remove flooring and cut a hole in a wall to finally pinpoint the leak), we all lived in the house while they replaced almost the entire downstairs flooring. We had wood floors throughout (everywhere except bathrooms and bedrooms) and because they had to replace all continuous flooring, they replaced ALL 1400 sq ft of wood. The flooring contractors worked very closely with us to keep us in the loop on progress and where we might need to shift things. We did our "cooking" (microwave, toaster oven) in the laundry room, and moved our "living" to upstairs. They also worked it so that they got it all done in 2 days (2 long days of work for them, but they were trying to be sensitive to the fact that we were living AND working there).

I can't imagine you'd have to leave the house unless they find something far more horrific, like mold that needs to be addressed. The flooring contractor should work with you (under guidance from insurance as well) to make sure you can live around it, such as covering the hole with a large piece of plywood at the end of their workday.

And, you might win new carpeting/flooring from the process. :) Good luck! My advice is to run everything by your insurance company (so - ask them what to do about what the plumber determines to be next steps - are you to wait or have plumber go ahead?). You want everything to be totally transparent, and they will appreciate that and get you all fixed up!

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Originally Posted by SnuggleBuggles

I would ask those follow up questions to your agent. But, off the top of my head- I think living there would be fine and perhaps a Disaster Restoration Service would be your best bet to get things promptly put back together.

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I did ask that question, and she said she could not say.

twowhat? just saw your reply as I was typing. Thanks so much! I will do that.

I know it seems like I am overthinking everything, but I really cannot afford to make preventable mistakes in how I handle this.

I had a dishwasher leak and we had to replace a big chunk of our kitchen floor, it didn't really take that long and we were able to just navigate around it.

Thanks! I think what I am most wondering about if its likely there is mold or other issues in the crawlspace (due to the leak) that would be open and that would be bad. I know there is some mold in houses, etc, but wondering if this could be more...hopefully the plumber can tell me?

Have any of you been having allergy/breathing issues so far? Having had a wet subfloor before that made us cough and gag, I would start looking around for a temporary place, just in case. We went to a friend’s vacation home for a week when it happened to us.


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Originally Posted by WatchingThemGrow

Have any of you been having allergy/breathing issues so far? Having had a wet subfloor before that made us cough and gag, I would start looking around for a temporary place, just in case. We went to a friend’s vacation home for a week when it happened to us.


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Strangely enough we have not. I would have thought we would have, but no. And ds has asthma and dd just tends to have reactions to things in general. Of course, we have cats so would need to figure out what to do about that..and I am working from home. Aside from the cats, though, I think it would be relatively easy to find someplace..not cheap, but easy.

I would guess that they can lay a piece of subfloor (plywood) temporarily until you get the flooring replaced.

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Originally Posted by o_mom

I would guess that they can lay a piece of subfloor (plywood) temporarily until you get the flooring replaced.

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LOL! Good point. Simple solution