Although I did eventually want to remodel my kitchen it was lower on the list than fixing some other things and remodeling the two outdated bathrooms. But last night I discovered my sink was leaking. It was the drain pipe and it leaked under two cabinets and out to the garage. I had washed a bunch of dishes and ran the water for a while so it was a lot more water than usually runs through there. I will be getting the drain pipe replaced and have turned off the water to the sink in the meantime so I don’t forget and run water. From the look of the pipe and the cabinet below the sink it was leaking for a while and I just never noticed.
My concern is the water that leaked under two cabinets and through the wall. Actually, one of the cabinets is a dishwasher so there’s no chance of damage to that, only to the wall and floor behind/under it. I will barely be able to scrape up enough to fix the sink, I can’t jump into a remodel to replace cabinets but I wonder if I should just go ahead and rip out the cabinets and make sure the walls aren’t damaged. I was actually thinking of putting the fridge in that area when I remodeled - but it would be next to the dishwasher and I don’t think you’re supposed to put an appliance that gets hot next to a fridge.
Also, the dishwasher doesn’t really work well and I don’t use it anymore anyway because of that. Should I just go ahead and pull that out too and get rid of it?
I’ve been trying to learn drywall and thought I might be able to repair the walls on my own and then just use a rolling cart or two in that spot until I can afford to replace the cabinets.
I recently got a second job to pay for some planned home repairs and appliance replacements. I should have known that something else would break before I had any money set aside.
If you tear things out, you’ll see how bad the water damage is and give things a chance to dry out, but the kitchen will look like hell till you scrape together the money for repairs.
If you wait, you may get mildew (and accompanying smell), rot, crumbling drywall, swelling and delamination of wood, etc. On the other hand, the kitchen will be intact.
Without having seen your kitchen, my inclination would be to open up the cabinets, sop up any standing water, and run an exhaust fan or dehumidifier to get rid of some of the moisture - but don’t do demolition till you’ve got the money to finish the job.
Your biggest concern is to find/stop/repair and dry rot - that means pulling the sink base (the cabinet containing the sink), opening the wall, removing the floor covering.
Yep, quite the mess, esp. if “remodel the kitchen” isn’t on the next-up “to do”.
The “how to deal with dry rot” is another thread, so let’s get you back to having a functioning (if ugly) kitchen. If possible, retain sink and counter. Note the width of the sink base (SB). Watch Craigslist for a GOOD (at a minimum: Real wooden glue blocks in the corners - use MDF sides, if you must, but demand real corner blocks, done with real glue.) SB. Since you opened the wall to check for rot in it, here’s the perfect place to practice drywall - since it’s just going to have a cabinet in front of it, ugly is OK.
p.s. rip out the d/w at your peril - project creep LOVES those “well, might as well…” thought processes
I am leaning toward ripping the cabinets and dishwasher out. I don’t have people over so I am not worried about how it will look to others. The kitchen is that old 70’s particle board with laminate countertops and the cabinets are also mostly particle board, plywood and laminate. The particle board is already falling apart so that anytime I open a cabinet there’s aways a layer of particle board dust on everything. So I would really just be trading one type of ugly for another. As usedtobe said, it will be a good place for drywall practice that will eventually be covered up by something else.
I am pretty much committed to staying in this place for quite some time, with the housing market as it is I could not even sell this house as a fixer-upper and have any money to buy a new house. So there really is not much for me to do except learn how to make repairs and improvements on my own, save up for the stuff I can’t do and work on everything piecemeal.
Since the cabbies are 70’s vintage, they are the (still current) 24" depth. Bath vanities are also designed to accept a sink (all that means is the upper section is blank - no drawer or door).
Back to vanities - they are either 19" or 21" deep, and may be much easier to find used - if your keeper sink will fit, a vanity may be a viable substitute. They are also 2" or 4" lower than the kitchen cabbies.
In case you didn’t already know:
The diswasher is secured by 2 screws top front, screwed up into the counter,
I have never tried to do a kitchen a piece at a time, and caution against trying to buy cabinets this way - am concerned that the manufacturer might tweak (or worse) the design mid-project.
p.s. - a decent counter can be DIY with COUNTER GRADE (forget the cheapies at Home Depot et al) ceramic tile - another long story on how to do that right.
What’s the harm in leaving it for a while? Worst-case scenario, you have a wet area somewhere, but once you repair the drip, it isn’t going to get any worse. Dry what you can, and maybe even drill a few access holes and blow air into them. If the area dries in a reasonably short time, you shouldn’t have too much of a mold issue. In other words, I don’t think this is that big a deal – certainly not worth ripping your kitchen out over. Wait a bit and see if you smell mold. If you do, then you can always open up the walls at that point.
Dry rot is a progressive thing - it will eventually cause the wood to crumble. If, as I suspect, this is an exterior wall, FIX IT! FIX IT NOW! All exterior walls (yeah, you know some freak wall somewhere -stuff it! :D) are load-bearing. You don’t want one side of the house to start sagging.
There is (an incredibly expensive) stuff to treat dry-rotted wood - it seems to be a silica-based watery stuff you brush on - repeatedly. This is your cheapest, and, if done in time, entirely adequate fix (use bondo to patch/replace the wood that has already crumbled) - but you have to rip it open, and keep ripping it open until you KNOW what the damage is and where. If left alone, you will eventually be looking at jacking up whatever is sitting on the wall (upstairs floor, roof - those little things) and replacing the rotted lumber with a new wall.
And… particle board loves water - unless it was somehow water-proofed, it may have wicked up water into adjoining cabinets.
Sure, but what’s the time frame? It’s not going to get that bad that quickly, particularly if the leak is resolved. And anyway, we don’t really even know that there is dry rot.
May I add…your immediate concern is to remove all residual moisture that you can to prevent the growth of the toxic molds that thrive in these conditions. The spores from these can have serious some health effects.
Run a dehumidifier and/or exhaust fan in the affected areas for a few days, you may have to punch a couple ventilation holes in the wall.
If the dishwasher is not working or hasn’t been used for a while, I would remove and dispose of it.
I wouldn’t panic about dry-rot at this point, the swelling and delamination of the particle board is superficial.
When you are ready to renovate, plan to remove the bottom four feet of the drywall and replace with a mold/mildew ressitant drywall.