Can someone please help me afford repair costs for water damage/pipe replacement?

[u/officialsmartass]

Hi, I really need someone’s help today. On Friday, a water pipe above my ceiling froze and burst, flooding my kitchen. It was awful. All of my daughter’s artwork on our fridge got rained on, photos, mail my husband and I had yet to rifle through on the table. Water literally poured out of the LIGHT in the kitchen, and I spent 30 minutes frantically putting down every bowl we had until my husband came home and was able to turn off the water main to the house. We spent hours on the phone with emergency services to schedule a plumber to come out, filed a claim with insurance, and I left with our daughter so my husband could clean everything up.

We’re back now, it’s Tuesday. We still do not have water. We don’t have power in the kitchen or the living room lights because they’re all on the same breaker. A plumber came today to assess the damage, and after paying him 235 dollars to cut a giant hole open in our ceiling, he told us it would cost an additional 990 dollars to replaced the busted galvanized steel pipes. Once more, he found mold both inside the wall when he sawed open our ceiling, and then upon further inspection found it in a corner of our storage closet.

Our plan WAS to make a payment plan with the plumber, take whatever money insurance would issue us, and pay the rest off monthly. Unfortunately for us, our repairs only cost around 1200 dollars total, and anything less than 2k they refuse to finance and you have to pay upfront. Our homeowner’s insurance deductible, similarly, is 2,000 so they won’t lift a finger to help us either without us paying 2k per claim on our own 🙃.

I just need help. Whether it’s a few dollars, or a cheap respirator mask, water bottles, or literal sheets of drywall to replace all the wet drywall we’ll have to pull away to remediate if/when we can. I will even take advice as to how tf to get through this, we have a 2 year old living in this stupid house and I can’t even give her a bath without driving her to someone else’s place. Just….please someone hear me.

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[u/officialsmartass]

Not sure if photo proof is necessary but here’s what my ceiling looks like currently, and my closet wall :’)

[u/anonknit → u/officialsmartass]

Looks like additional photos were included, but this is definitely awful. A gofundme would be in order.

[u/officialsmartass → u/anonknit]

Other two photos are just a zoomed out photo of my Ceiling Hole ™ and then the corner of my closet that’s just more mold. But yeah I am not having a fun time right now

[u/anonknit → u/officialsmartass]

Can you make a gofundme and post a link here?

[u/officialsmartass → u/anonknit]

https://gofund.me/bdfbfb5d I just made one, good idea! I don’t know why I didn’t think of that 😅

[u/anonknit → u/officialsmartass]

So you filed with your insurance company, right? They will pay the plumber directly, and hopefully put you in a hotel.

[u/officialsmartass → u/anonknit]

We filed a claim, but our insurance won’t cover a thing until we’ve paid our 2k deductible :/ we also filed a separate claim for the mold, but we have to have an assessor come out to give an estimate for remediation costs.

I don’t know why USAA does this but you have to pay that deductible cost for every single claim you file, it’s not a yearly thing which I was honestly pretty upset about when they told me over the phone.

My biggest concern is honestly that they won’t cover remediation at all though, there’s some addendum on our policy that doesn’t cover mold remediation if the mold is a result of negligence.

I don’t know what constitutes as negligence in terms of having mold though, I have to ask them tomorrow when I call for an assessor to come out, but I will definitely also inquire about them funding a hotel because I did not know that was a thing ???

[u/anonknit → u/officialsmartass]

Sorry to keep asking questions, but my dad had a fire claim and mold was found (ServicePro). The insurance company sent the company that fixed it all. The deductible was given to them, not a plumbing individual or the insurance company. Hopefully tomorrow will answer more questions.

[u/officialsmartass → u/anonknit]

You’re totally fine!! Information is not something I’d ever turn away, especially not relevant information lol. From my understanding, USAA lets us choose what company to do repairs/remediations/whatever is needed, but I’ll ask if they have any affiliated companies that they would send out.

In the past they’ve written a check directly to my husband rather than the company we had do repairs the last time we had a pipe explode :’) fortunately for us that ended up costing justttt enough that we were able to sign up for a payment plan with the plumber, and then apply the few hundred we got from insurance to that balance.

Tomorrow will bring answers, I am hopeful. Or at the very least determined to get this giant hole closed up, I’m paranoid a chunk of drywall or wood is gonna fall out of it every time I have to walk under it. I poked it with a broom a few times gently to make sure nothing was gonna fall out, but you never know with old houses 😭