Water Leaking in Garage Ceiling

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MarkDIY

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Hello:

I have a two story house with one bedroom and the washer/dryer room sitting on top of the garage. Yesterday my washer malfunctioned and leaked all the water during a washing cycle unto the floor. Unfortunately, this was not caught until an hour later. The room was cleaned up and the washer fixed. However, when we were cleaning the spilled water from the washer we went into the garage to grab some buckets and noticed that there was flowing water leaking from one of the light bulbs in the garage's ceiling. It was the light bulb that is below the washer/dryer room. It has since stopped leaking but there was ALOT of water that got dropped into the garage floor. My concern is that there may be more water sitting in that ceiling.

There is no way to gain access to the space between the garage and the rooms above it. How can I check if there is water in there? How likely is it that this could become a problem (ie. mold). Short of just cutting a hole in that garage roof how can I take a look in there?

Thanks,
MD
 
Normally I would suggest a hole in each bay between floor joists and allow it to dry but you have insulation up there so drying it out will require more work like opening it up. In most cases this would be covered by home owners insurance.
 
You probably have insulation in there so you'll need to open it up. If it were just drywall it would dry without much of an issue. Getting the insulation dry is a long process, and it is easier to just rip it out and replace it.
 
Thank-you both for the replies.
So on regards to opening it up it would just be a matter of cutting through the ceiling drywall? Is this just as simple as making a square around that area and see what it looks like?

I called the insurance company and filed a claim. They are having an adjuster come out and I want to ensure that they don't feed me any BS. Do you have any tips?

Thanks.
 
It is a matter of your deductible. They should want to pull down anything that is wet, remove the insulation, set up some fans to dry it out and then bring all that back to where it was.
Double check up stairs, feel for wet or damp carpet, hardwood will start cupping in a day or two if water got under it.
This happened to a friend a while ago, she thought I could repair the drywall in the basement and save on the deductible. When I got there the hard wood in the next room was already cupping. They replaced all the hardwood in the whole house for $500. Their total claim was $30,000.
Once water gets to the subfloor it can travel great distances under every kind of flooring
 
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