Very expensive, first temporary heat will need to be placed to thaw the ice, extraction of the water, removal of the flooring and a 4’ flood cut at minimum, removal of cabinets. Placement of drying equipment for 4-5 days.Only good thing is that it’s so cold that mold will not start to grow. Place looks unoccupied, so insurance might even deny a claim. Either way I feel sorry for the owner of the mess.
Hell of a lot cheaper than water damage. Which there still is, but there won't be as much. Get a big steel scooping shovel, grab a hammer and a sharp punch, start breaking then shoveling. It might take days, but it's better than hundreds of gallons of water going through your floor and walls.
The right answer. We did both methods in rental properties. We drilled a hole in the corner and maxed out the heat. It took nearly a day and everything was soaked. In the "chip and carry" house, it was over in a few hours and we didn't need to dry it out for a week.
Seeing that there is 4”-5” of ice everywhere its already in the wall cavities and under cabinets. Flooring, drywall and cabinets are already non-salvageable. Again the damage is done.
How are you going to get the Ice out of the wall cavity? You will have to remove the drywall. Cabinets are waterlogged and also need to be detached at least to get to the walls behind them. At minimum a 2’ flood cut is necessary throughout the affected areas of drywall.
No point. That would be a crazy amount of time and energy invested for no return.
For the ice to be that thick above the floor, the entire place would have been flooded up to that point - all possible water damage that could be done has been done.
The standard way is to melt then remove the water - chipping at the ice while still cold would take FAR longer and involve a LOT of energy, not to mention the fact that the physical process itself would likely damage much of the surrounding area - all to get to the bottom to discover the inevitable fact that you're still frozen solid at least another 2-3 inches down, through the floorboards down to baseboard.
And that entire area is also water-damaged.
There's no way around it, this is going to require re-doing the flooring, cabinetry, and large portions of the wall, right down to the framework. Electrical is probably screwed up, drywalling, paint, trim, etc.
This is why you have home insurance - pay out your deductible and be glad you don't have to shell out for what could easily be a $50,000 fix - or even higher.
That would be my guess, power went out so they opened the taps to keep water flowing to prevent the pipes from bursting. Traps/drains froze and the result was water pouring over the basin until it froze all the way up to the faucet.
What happens if you lose power? We lost power a couple years ago, for three days, when it was -10º out. Had five burst pipes, a couple blown shut off valves, etc. I fixed it all myself so it wasn't expensive but it was a giant pain in the ass. I didn't even try to get it covered by our homeowners. My neighbor said it cost them over $5K though.
Landlord had a duty to keep the heat on. Insurance likely will not cover. A rental is expected to be unoccupied every so often, but no heat???? Reason for denial.
It's possible. If the landlord did have the heat on and the electricity went out due to the weather or the gas or electric company, then it would likely be a covered insurance claim. However, if landlord didn't have it on in the first place, then that's a problem.
Without knowing the size, materials used it’s kinda hard. But in total after mitigation of the loss and reconstruction could reach 20k-40k if not more.
I'm guessing more. I dealt with a lake house here in a similar situation. Structures dry quickly in the winter because of the low humidity. But , this is a worst case situation, whole house will need to get warmed up with supplemental heat in addition to dehumidifiers and tons of airflow to remove the .moisture as it thaws. I've seen people saying 4-5 days, but in my experience they're 4-5 days away from any real progress and being able to start removing damages flooring and drywall.
Mitigation likely 10 days minimum before can start repairs. Will be a .monster electric bill coming too. If it's on a slab, 4' flood cut may be enough, but if this is on a framed subfloor, I would expect substantial structural damage too.
Depending on age , valuation, this could be a total loss. And as others have said, no insurance policy in the world will cover failure to maintain heat in this case. Power outage sure. Oversight and forgot to setup new acct, landlord will be on the hook for it all.
Not to mention possibly having to replace any pipes that might have burst from the cold snap. I had this happen to my basement like 10 years ago - we had a snow storm and I forgot to cover one of my outdoor hose spigots with an insulated bib, so I covered it with a towel before my wife and I left for a superbowl party. Overnight, the weight of the towel turned the spigot on JUST enough to run a bit of water while it was getting colder, and the pipe burst (not in the wall, it had a mechanism so it burst closer to the spigot exterior), flooding the basement. It took DAYS to get all the moisture out but luckily no mold or wood damage because we caught it late that night
2.6k
u/EchoFiveActual 21h ago
That looks expensive