Building Nelson!: December 2014

Tuesday 9 December 2014

Disaster

I thought we were inundated with so much when moving in but I now know what it feels like to be completely overwhelmed. During our build process I loved following others journey's. I also found it really frustrating when people got their keys that the updates stopped!! I now totally see why!! I will get back on top of it, in fact I felt like I was almost there and two days ago the most devastating thing happened; for people who have built a dream home and agonised over every part and detail....

Our house flooded and all our new timber flooring has been destroyed (all due to a defective, brand new dishwasher)

On Monday morning my daughter walked into the study and said the carpet was wet. Considering there were no liquids in the room, nor had their been, it sounded a little strange. I went in to find the carpet completely sodden and wet. It was against the internal wall and was about 2m in length and about 50cm out from the wall. It wasn't damp; it was puddled wet. I quickly grabbed towels to get as much up as I could. It took in liquid from about 7 towels then I phoned the builder in a complete panic. Over the weekend we had had really heavy rain and it hadn't stopped for the two days. Our yard was a boggy mess and water externally was everywhere. It just seemed to be obvious that it had to come from that. However, there were no drips on the roof or down the walls and there is a bedroom directly upstairs and there was nothing anywhere else. It made no sense at all. I told him there is no water anywhere other that there. The only thing we had done different was for the first time last night we had run the dishwasher. We had also deliberately done it before we went to bed, all good. Our SS phoned a plumber and calls started to be made. He asked if I was sure it wasn't the dishwasher. I said, no as there was no water anywhere near it. The wait was killing me so I decided we should eliminate the dishwasher so we could get to the bigger problem. I disconnected the water and unhooked all the taps etc. I then moved the dishwasher forward. As soon as it moved half way out, water began pouring from all sides and corners. I grabbed all the towels and absorbent material I could including a doona to protect the floors and I heaved it up and outside. I'm still not exactly sure how that happened but have never had more adrenaline running through my body. As soon as I got it out it hit my like a tonne of bricks; the realisation that the water in the study had come from the dishwasher; which is two rooms away. I was in a mad panic of mopping up any excess but the damage had been done. Very slowly over the past two weeks the dishwasher had been leaking water inside the dishwasher out the back and under the floor. The damage was done and was significant.

In hindsight, there were signs that we didn't pick up on, having never had timber flooring. Last Thursday I sent an email to the floorers saying that some of the caulking was squeezing up and was tacky. Is this normal? What should I do? We assumed it was quite normal for floors to have that bit of movement. They were going to come and check it out and clean it up a bit. There was some ridging in-between the island bench and the ovens (right out from the dishwasher). It's so damn obvious now but we didn't know any better and again just thought it was normal. On Sunday I said to my husband there was a bit of a smell near the study, it wasn't too bad, just different. No doubt another sign. Also over the weekend we noticed a strange dust appearing on all the light switches and chairs etc. The weather on Saturday was really humid and it made sense it was just that - with all the dust laying around outside. Again, another sign - possibly the timber releasing the water which was condensing in the air with the dust. There was also one part of the floor that had a sound when you stepped on it, very small - but it was obviously the glue lifting off. I feel really silly now but nothing was ever obvious and we just didn't know or realise. Once we realised what had happened and we looked at the floors the more we noticed. There is ridging and movement across most of the floor and it is getting worse by the hour. You can feel it as you walk on it now with every step you take, you can also hear the squelching of water under some areas. There is a lot of water sitting under there.

Anyway I will try to stick to the point as this could go on forever and it only just occurred on Monday - we still don't have answers or are unsure of outcomes. Thank goodness we have insurance. We have fans and de-humidifiers on the carpet already and have been told by one assessor it cannot be salvaged - the timber (rather obvious). We will have another out in the coming days to detail everything.

The dishwasher was brand new and installed by a plumber. We phoned the supplier and they put us through to Fischer and Paykel. I was desperate to get answers because if it wasn't the dishwasher there was a serious issue with the plumbing which we would need to get onto urgently. They couldn't send anyone out Monday as it would need to be someone higher up, due to the extent of the damage. They came out yesterday and initially couldn't find anything. They then unscrewed the bottom of it and found internally a broken hose..... Its flood protection also didn't activate. Although he didn't say it was their fault, he did elude to that and also said that their insurance would be in consolation with our insurance company regarding it. He said he would write his report which wouldn't please the company. He said the machine would also need to be repaired - which I kindly told him, there is no way that dishwasher is coming back in this house and that we would also need to recover the costs for that.

So our journey begins... We will need to have the flooring ripped up (I'm so scared of our windows and kitchen cabinetry) and the concrete will need to be dried out for 1-2 months before our floorers will even look at doing it all over again (there cannot be any moisture left in the floor). Skirting boards will all need to be removed, new ones bought, painted and put on after flooring (again). We were so careful with the timing of things too. We made sure our blinds, furniture delivery etc were done last (these will all need protecting) our windows that were scratched have all just been replaced. All the things from out Completion of Works List were all just being finished and now it will be months till be can actually live in there again with everything all set out. It's a nightmare.

Queensland Spotted Gum Hardwood Floor, Poly Gloss Finsih

I wish I was writing this post under different circumstances. We must have done something to insult the universe because we are being seriously punished at the moment. I will write a longer post next regarding this but it is with utter dismay and with the heaviest of hearts that I say that our stunning Spotted Gum flooring has been destroyed. It has all happened in the last 2 days and we are still in the process of going through it all but a brand new, yet defective dishwasher has slowly leaked water under our flooring for the past 2 weeks (unbeknownst to us). It has completely destroyed the floor, which will all need to be ripped up. It flooded through 2 rooms into the study and saturated the carpet there. Fischer and Paykel had their head guy come out and they found a broken pipe inside. We are completely devastated and its going to be a long journey to get back to where we are now. Our painter just finished filling and painting the skirting boards last week and we were finally ready to set all our furniture out. Instead we will soon need to begin packing again.

Here is the flooring prior to this week (we only had 1 week of them). It turned out better than we had imagined and we could not have been happier with the final result. It was stunning.

Harwood timber flooring - QLD Spotted Gum 80 x 14mm select/standard mix
We deleted flooring in our Carlisle contract (to entry, hall, meals, kitchen and lounge) and then had our own company install the floors.

Flooring Timeline

31st October - Handover - got keys
3rd November - Flooring laid - took 1 week to lay
We moved into the house (partly) on 7th November - floors were not sanded or polished
Flooring then sat to allow them to acclimatise to the temperature and ensure minimal movement (as they came from Queensland) - nearly 2 weeks
19th November - we moved out and floors were sanded and polished. After polishing we couldn't move back for an extra 3 days to allow time for it to dry and set (also highly toxic)
We moved back into the house on the 24th November
(See now why I haven't had many posts!!!)
We have been in the house just over 2 weeks....

Flooring Process

Concrete scraped and cleaned
Protective plastic laid
12mm layer of ply - screwed to the slab (what appeared to be 1000 screws!)
QLD Spotted Gum timber glued and secret nailed
Sanded and polished with 3 coats of solvent poly gloss finish

Protective Plastic Goes Down

Ply is Laid

Timber Gets Delivered!! It was soooo exciting seeing the timber. It gave us a good idea of the colour and what the end result would look like (this photo is in the garage under fluorescent lights).We were so excited by the colour variation and the feature to the timber. Timber really is an absolutely beautiful product.

More Natural Light

Here we Go!!! Goose bumps when we saw the first parts down!

The Next Night

So much completed in a day! These photos are under light at night time

While the floorers laid the floors during the night. I went back to the house at night and painted all the skirting boards! Enamel paint fumes in a garage send you a little crazy after a while!!

*Because our flooring was laid after hand-over and did not want quad on the floor under any circumstances, we had Carlisle leave the skirting boards off to all of the ground floor. They left us all the skirting boards in the packets and the paint to paint them. It was a bit painful at the time to try and get them done but the end result was worth it all. To avoid quad around the kitchen the floorer used caulking. Its a timber matched silicone that fills in the small gap needed to allow for movement.