I received an emergency phone call today from a client living in Los Altos. The client’s home is almost brand new, so I was a bit surprised when I arrived to find some workers ripping out drywall and insulation from the entryway ceiling.
The homeowners had discovered that a third story aluminum window had been improperly installed by the general contractor who built the home, so the contractor agreed to open up the exterior wall last week and to then re-install the window “flashing,” which is the material placed around the window flange to ensure a waterproof seal.
Unfortunately, once the exterior wall had been opened up, we received an unusual drenching of May rain that soaked the exterior of the home and made its way into the now open exterior wall. The homeowner phoned the contractor, who opted to not come out, because it was raining!
Within the next few hours, what started as a rather small problem, in one location, spread to the entire first floor of the house thanks to gravity.
Anyone who has ever suffered through a water leak within their home can tell you that where the water actually becomes visible is often quite far from where the leak originated. You can blame it on gravity. As soon as a water leak occurs, the water will start traveling downhill, and will always choose the easiest path on its downward journey. That’s why homeowners often say that water is leaking out of their recessed ceiling lights, these openings in the ceiling drywall are simply the easiest way for the water to escape.
The water is this Los Altos home travelled from the open exterior wall into the wall framing itself, and then travelled down the wall to the second story, and then travelled down the wall to the first story where it came into contact with a concrete slab. From there it travelled under the floating hardwood floors and then along the concrete slab, until it had travelled into every room on the ground floor of the home.
I measured the moisture content of all of the hardwood flooring, and it was all saturated with water. All of these floors will now need to be removed and discarded. Once hardwood floors have been saturated with water, they become cupped and unusable.
So the lesson here…if you have a leak…deal with it right now! Don’t wait until the rain stops (or any other excuse), because gravity is relentless. And the water that you think is contained to a small area will continue traveling until it reaches the end of its path. And the end of the path might just be your entire home.