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Monday, June 9, 2008

THERE'S WATER IN THE KITCHEN!!

I noticed the first time I did laundry in our new house that a little water leaked out from under the washing machine. (The stacking washer and dryer came with the house too.) I didn't think too much about it until ALOT of water came out from under the washing machine. Eventually ALL the water came out from under the washing machine, into our kitchen mind you. Thankfully, I thought, we have a home warranty plan that covers drain blockages, (as long as the problem isn't roots in the pipes) so we should be covered. The plumber came out on Friday afternoon and said that the pipe connecting from the washer to the mainline isn't large enough for modern day appliances (our house was built in the 50s). He proposed to replace it with a pipe that would bring it to code and whether the old pipe was just blocked or too small, the problem would be fixed. He said he would get the repairs authorized and would call back to set up a time to fix the problems. (I was so backed up with laundry, I had to go to my mom's on Saturday for 4 hours to do it all!)

Well, I just spent my entire morning on the phone with our home warranty company (AHS) who I feel rivals any health insurance company out there. They of course don't want to pay to fix anything, so they find any exclusion they can dream up (in this case article I.4). Our plumber said that AHS recently rewrote their coverage and exclusion plan, and he didn't realize that there are new buzzwords that he can't say. (In our case, "lack of capacity") I told him (from what I read and could understand in the fine print) what might get our problem fixed, so hopefully he can work something out with them. We are just waiting for now (still without a working washing machine!) for the powers that be to grant us to ability to do laundry.

(This so reminds me our our health insurance company that wouldn't pay my maternity costs for Ellie under the maternity coverage because I had to see two different providers when she ended up being breach. I ended up having to pay it as an office visit which tacked on 20% of the total costs. Okay, if I wasn't pregnant then who was that little person that we had to take home from the hospital. Really, people!)

(A side note that I thought was pretty funny was that our plumber said that you can't tell before you clear a line what is blocking it. He said that plumbers don't have x-ray vision :) If it happened to be roots inside of the pipe, which is not covered by warranties, he was able to call it a structural failure because pipes are supposed to be water tight and impenetrable, not allowing roots to get in. Way to work the system!)

1 comments:

Kristen Borland said...

sounds like you found a wonderful, honest plumber! hopefully he can make it work out with the insurance company.

i'm sorry you don't have use of your washer right now. that would drive me nuts! it seems i'm always doing laundry (i don't do it all in one day) here and there. i will be extra grateful for my appliances this week!!