One of the most unglamorous aspects of real estate is dealing with wastewater backup. The one item that really no one wants to think about Is wastewater plumbing. Whether you are buying multi-family, office building, industrial, or simply single-family residential, one of the most important things to examine is your wastewater pipe layout and material.
Basically, two materials we are dealing with in our buildings are PVC (if they are newer houses or recently the line has been changed) or cast iron pipes.
If the building is older than 1980 most likely you are dealing with cast iron waste pipe. These pipes have lived their life and the metal is starting to corrode and has made one of the sides very easily susceptible to a crack. Once that does happen this is a bigger problem. The first thing you will be doing is calling a plumber and snaking the pipe if you see the dirt with the wastewater back up you are most likely dealing with a crack pipe under the foundation. At this point, it is wise to ask for your insurance binder or look over your insurance binder and make sure you have coverage for waste water backup.
It is important to note that insurance usually does not know what your complete policy is until they start digging up your policy binder. It is very important to keep an electronic copy if possible or the physical copy for each and every property you hold. This is specific to your property as every coverage is clearly defined. Additionally, knowing what we know about insurance companies we know that insurance companies would like to make it as complicated and take as few claims that possible. Do your due diligence and keep the binders so you know what you are looking at from the get-go (hence the options you can take are different)
Once you know that your insurance company is covering your wastewater backup call the most reputable plumbing company and let them know the situation. Some plumbing companies simply ask for coverage and take care of the entire process. If that is the case you hand off! You will need to ask your contractors to come back and redo your flooring and anything else that has been affected, for example, baseboards, studs behind the sheetrock, etc.
If for some reason you are not covered by insurance the approach could be to get a plumber to do a “Snake” camera and figure out where the crack can be or where the blockage is. have a handyman break the concrete or flooring and make a 4 feet by 4 feet hole by using no power equipment you do not know what other types might be there as there might be copper pipes running through the ground this process will save you some dollars as you can call the plumber as soon as you’ve detected where the pipe is the plumbers can finish the rest of it even though this is a nasty job it is one of the joys of knowing that our houses and our buildings are nothing but simple mechanics once you understand the concept table do you great joy in knowing almost anything that is broken can be fixed.
You also want to see if you can replace as much of the old cast iron pipe and one-shot when you have the floor open and after that cover the cement and other all repairs.
The baseboard around wastewater damage will need to be inspected and replaced. If the sheetrock is affected as well, a section will need to come out to avoid future molding.
Best to hand dig, as you can be hitting re-bart or other pipes. Here is an example of a cast iron pipe cracking and that area changed by PVC.