Over the last year, the first floor has taken quite a beating with leaks. When I moved in, I noticed spots on different areas of the ceiling on both the first and main floors. I knew those spots would come back to haunt me.
Starting about a few months after I moved in, leaks started in two major areas. The first was in the ceiling of the dining room. Every time it rained, water would travel down a steel beam (in my ceiling) and drop precisely in a few spots. These drops were so precise, they formed tiny holes in my ceiling drywall and left tiny puddles on my stone floor. In the area that is now used as a gym, the drop ceiling tile had these brown spots that appeared over time. Our contractor pointed out that the spots were along similar lines… because the water was traveling along the beams on the other side of the house, as well. There were a handful of times each year that we had totes to catch the water. During the winter and spring, the totes were so full, I needed help to dump them.
The issue wasn’t actually inside, but outside. Both of these areas had porches above them and the contractor decided we would start with redoing the flashing on these porches. In addition, we also decided to tear down the disgusting drop ceiling in the gym and do spray foam in black.
So, we hired the contractors to start the work and were added to the schedule. And then we waited. We waited 4 months. And the foam was back-ordered, so we waited another 3 months. And then another month. finally, 6 months later, the project began… in the same week as the mold remediation. When it rains, it pours.