Maybe some law types peruse this thread and can offer me some advice on this contractor dispute.
Had my roof done in March. First big downpour after the storm I noticed some discoloration on my daughters ceiling, obviously a bit wet. I went into the attic and saw some wet spots. I called the roofer, he came out, and gave me this spiel: “Yeah, it’s not anything I did. We made sure to get the flashing around the chimney and that’s all good. We think it’s getting through on the top of your chimney around the siding, and we didn’t touch that part. You’ll want a siding guy to check that out.”
I’m like 99% sure he’s wrong. 1. It never leaked before he redid my roof, even though the roof was 25 years old. 2. The wet spot in the attic is about 5 feet away from the chimney opening. I don’t see any evidence of water wicking through the plywood to that spot.
So what now? I don’t trust him to be honest with me about the nature of the issue. But do I have to at least give him a chance to repair his own work? What I would prefer to do is have a 2nd roofer come out and give an assessment. If the leak is coming through the siding, then the first guy was right, and I hire the 2nd guy or someone else to fix it. If the first guy is wrong and the 2nd roofer finds a leak from the poor workmanship, I’d like to have the 2nd guy fix it, and I bill the first roofer for the repair. And at this point I sort of want him to pay for the drywall and insulation damage as well.
Do you have any pictures around the chimney? Most likely has something to do with the flashing around chimney. Have another contractor look at it and see what he says. Take pictures of the damage and if you can pictures of the work done on the roof and around the chimney. If it’s the roofers fault then for sure he needs to pay for all that to be fixed.
I have pictures from the inside of my attic. My house is pretty tall and I don’t even have a ladder that I can (safely) use to get up there, so noting form up top. I was hoping to get the 2nd contractor to document whatever the issue is.
Yea that’s a good plan. See what the other contractor thinks the issue is. If it was the roofers fault getting him to pay or fix the issue will have a lot to do with how your state handles contractor disputes. Hopefully he is licensed, insured all that stuff.
I called my homeowners insurance, not really expecting them to cover this, but wondering if they had any general advice, and they were pretty worthless. Apparently “poor workmanship by a contractor” is not covered.
Your position as far as the insurance company is concerned is that this isn’t poor workmanship by a contractor. It’s a completely separate issue (at least that’s the info you have now).
My girlfriend just rented a new apartment and her water heater has this setup which looks strange to her … venting pipe out the top? She’s worried about that apparent space between the pipe and the heater. It does look odd to me. I told her I’d ask … Does this look legit?
Yep, pretty common. My old house had that same setup with the pipe going to a chimney. I replaced it with a similar one wen it failed.
New house had a water heater with a powered fan on top venting through PVC out the side of the house. Don’t ask me what determines whether you need a power vent one or the style you’ve shown, but the non-powered ones cost significantly less, so enjoy that come replacement time.
Caveat, I know next to nothing about diy, but have had problems with toilet flushing before. Had to fix it myself and was a giant pita: crappy, non-standard parts only available in my neck of the woods.
On phone so best I can manage. Looks like the black plastic arm has snapped and detached from the float.
Try manually adjusting the float to see if water flows then call your landlord imo.
So, that right circle is just the water supply and that’s how it’s been clipped for awhile. I had to replace the white lever in the picture a few months ago because the toilet was running constantly. So, that black cylinder thing looks/seems to be the float device but no matter how low I set it, it doesn’t fill. What has made it fill off and on is wiggling the whole shaft that that black cylinder is on. It filled temporarily or very slowly the last week or so but I was out of town so ignored it. I’m pretty sure by shaking that too hard I’m going to have to turn the water supply off when it breaks.
Having had to fill that myself to flush, it takes 3 gallons approx to fill that son of a bitch to just flush one pee down. When I’m drinking that is like 20+ gallons of water a day just for my piss. Our generation’s kids are going to die in a fiery hell scape.
I don’t have a ton of experience with dishwashers other than they’ve always been pretty reliable for me. The water inlet valve is one of the more complex parts on them, so I can see that being a failure point, but I’ve had 10+ year old dishwashers that chug along just fine. I can’t think of anything that would cause these to fail prematurely other than abnormally corrosive water or some sort of wiring issue causing it to fry itself.
Update on this one. Finally got another contractor to take a look at the leak. He did basically confirm what the original roofer said, that it’s coming through the top of the chimney. He said the timing of the leak with the roof replacement is that it may have been damaged by the crew if they bumped into or grabbed at the chimney while they were up there. He did say it looks like a hammer and some caulk could probably take care of it.
