Andrew Jorgensen

Our beautiful new home has been flooded.

I’m sure some of you are aware that our water-softener was plumbed incorrectly. They forgot to install the drain for the water-softener so whoever installed the softener itself put the drain tubes for it down the nearest drain — the one in the drain pan for the water-heater. I should also mention that all of this is in the laundry on the second floor.

Well for some reason the drain pan for the water-heater drains to the back yard. I have some theories about why but none of them are very compelling. In any case the water-softener mustn’t drain to the back yard as it will probably kill the lawn (if I can ever afford a lawn).

I contacted the builder about this as soon as I discovered the mistake and they contacted their plumber — this was two weeks ago; the plumber never came by to fix the problem.

This morning (Friday) I went downstairs to bake some cornbread and noticed one of those drywall-tape bubbles that are often the first indication of a serious problem. Then into the kitchen where I stepped into a huge puddle of water.

My best guess is that that pipe that drains outside got plugged up with ice thanks to the cold weather we’re having. The plumber says that for the water-heater that’s not a problem because water spilling from a water-heater is usually very hot. I hope he’s right if I ever do have a water-heater leak. Anyway, I guess it got frozen and the water from the softener backed up and spilled over the sides of the drain pan.

The builder showed up pretty quick to look at the damage and had the plumber there in no time. Originally the plumber was going to correct his mistake by running the drain tubes around the walls or through the ceiling over to the laundry drain. But since the ceiling was already destroyed I told him to forget about that and do it right — put the drain in the wall where it was supposed to be! He was hesitant to rip open my ceiling and wall but I insisted that at this point he could rip apart anything he wanted to since he was going to be paying to replace it all anyway.

I went to work and Rebecca took the kids to her Mom’s. Hours later the plumber came back to start working and a guy from a restoration company came by to find all the damage and start getting everything dried up.

It turns out it was way worse than I originally thought. About half of John’s room needed to be ripped up, and some of Noah’s. The entire upstairs hallway. Most of the first floor ceiling and some of the carpet. A good portion of the kitchen floor will have to be replaced, and some of the walls. I don’t think any of our personal property was damaged (though various things are a little wet right now).

The entire house is still under warranty with the builder so we won’t be paying for anything. The builder is coordinating all the repairs for us, but we do need to be there to let them in and such. It should take them a few days into next week to fix it.

We’re staying at a hotel, which the builder will be paying for. I also put a stop on the check I wrote to the plumber last week which hadn’t cleared yet. I don’t intend to decide if he gets any money from me until this is over.

Everyone has been very pleasant about the problem and eager to make things right. It’s even a good thing in one way because I finally managed to convince the plumber to fix it right. It’s also been good because I’ve been able to practice my negotiation skills — I’m getting much better. I called the inspector I hired before closing and got him to refund me half of his fee. I could have pushed for all of it but given how unusual the problem was I thought half was probably fair.

Rebecca was wonderful about the whole thing and took care of everything while I was at work. She did an excellent job of it too. I couldn’t have wanted to go through this disaster with anyone else at my side.

I’m grateful that I was baking this morning. Baking relaxes me, and the smell of fresh cornbread was was extremely pleasant under all that stress. If I hadn’t had to bake for the security team breakfast at work I’m sure I would have been furious all morning.

Well, mostly finished anyway. There are several minor issues Fieldstone needs to work out but they’ll get all those done eventually. We’ve actually already puchased a fridge, washer, and dryer, and moved in but the photos don’t reflect that because there are boxes everywhere still and I’m going to wait until things are a little more orderly before I take more pictures of the house.

All in all we’re very pleased. I feel a little guilty every time I drive our truck into the garage. And I’ve been doing laundry every day cause it’s so easy to do now that it’s at home. Noah likes having his own bathroom and is very excited about his new room.

This is where that white box they’ve been building starts to actually look like a home. It’s also where I go from asking myself what on earth I’m paying them for to realizing that this is going to be a place my family can live, and make dinner, and maybe even entertain a few friends.

Last week they installed the cabinets, counters and appliances:

In the master bathroom we had them raise the counters 6 inches higher than they would otherwise stand:

We also got a very nice toilet, as you can see, but more about that later perhaps. In retrospect I wonder if we should have chosen two colors for counters so that the kitchen would look different than the bathrooms. I really like the colors we picked though. After they turn the power on I’ll get some better pictures.

Lights have also been installed. I’m very glad we upgraded the lights, particularly in the kitchen. The base house had one of those lovely fluorescent bars I despise so much. We opted to have recessed-can lighting instead. They look so much better it almost makes me giddy.

We also had them install a water-softener. Not because we wanted one but because they wanted to install it for free and let us try it out for a month and I know it can be difficult to add one after the fact. The thing’s so huge though that I may even have them call the plumber in to remove it before we close:

The truth is I just don’t like soft water. I don’t feel clean after showering in it even if I may actually be cleaner. I’ve heard arguments from all sides on that one. And I know that a water softener protects your appliances and fixtures but I just don’t know if it’s worth it to me and I certainly don’t want to spend the money for it right now.

We still can’t figure out why we didn’t buy our fridge, washer, and dryer from the builder. At the time I was sure I could find a better price (I’m still sure I can) but if we had let them do it we wouldn’t have to go purchase and install them ourselves. It’s really a very close trade-off (which, of course, is the ideal indicator that they priced it exactly right).

Over the last few weeks they mudded, taped, textured, and trimmed.

They also put in the vinyl floors. I must say it’s looking much nicer. So very much nicer.

And in the crawlspace (which is now significantly less humid) Wade and I saw the coolest thing:

I’m totally impressed that this poor weed is trying to grow down there. I’m sure there will be some light from the vents but I didn’t think there’d be enough for that. I may have to find some plants that like to grow in full shade and see how they do. On the other hand I definitely want to put some gravel down there to cover up the mud.

I might be the only one but I find drywall (before mudding and taping) absolutely agonizing. It looks so bad. Makes me feel like the whole thing is a disaster.

Realistically it’s not that bad. By the time they’re done it will look great I’m sure. For now though it really looks bad. And there’s trash everywhere.

Our porch was poured a couple of days ago. Didn’t get a good photo of it until today.

Insulation was installed yesterday. They did the entire house between 1:00pm and 7:00pm with the exception of the space behind the shower wall which the sub-contractor chose to be sneaky about. They pushed a little down from the top and a little up from the bottom but didn’t actually remove the wall to put insulation behind it. Luckily there was a small crack I could probe through to know that they hadn’t done it. The construction managers got right on it though. They even took pictures:

They even double checked for me behind the stairs:

… and under the furnace platform:

I’ll reserve final judgement for later but so far Fieldstone has been 100% on my side. They’ve done an excellent job in every way.

Building a home probably isn’t something you should do if you can’t spend some time watching over it but if you’ve got some time and a good general contractor I honestly don’t think it’s any worse than looking for a previously-owned home.