Yep, it’s those little things, like a pipe with a little corrosive crack, or a bath or shower floor with a small leak. You don’t notice anything at first, and when you do and look around you don’t see any real damage, maybe a little discoloring on a wall or ceiling but only if you look real hard, so you forget about it. Can’t be that bad right…
See, this is the problem with water, it leaks in one place, but the damage may happen in a totally different place. Water is funny like that, it just goes where it wants and when you finally find out where it’s going, the damage is already done.
Take this project we’re working on in Malibu. The shower on the second floor had a small leak in the floor, but it didn’t seem to be leaking very much water, just a little discoloration on the ceiling in the garage below the shower, so the owners just ignored it. No real problem here right…
Well, it was leaking a lot more water than they thought, but the bulk of the water was traveling horizontally over to the second story balcony off the bedroom, it’s there where it ended up on the support beams. Soon the rotting began.
This is how it starts, and over the years it continues slowly rotting away the wood. This is usually totally unknown to the home owners, they have no idea what’s going on because they can’t see it. Granted it took years, but now the balcony support beams are dangerously rotted and the balcony will have to be totally rebuilt.
So the lesson here is, if you see a leak, or suspect one, get on it ASAP. Fixing a leak before it’s a problem will cost hundreds of dollars and a little inconvenience, ignore it and it could cost you thousands, and be a big inconvenience.
The Crew at Aim Higher / General Construction Los Angeles
