Given the failure rate of water heaters and my experience in both new home construction and flood claims management, two things always baffled me. One, why groundworks plumbing in new homes doesn’t have a floor drain that can handle the volume of any completely failed line in the basement or running through the joists and two, why I’ve never met a concrete finisher that EVER slopes all points of a basement slab toward the floor drain. I do t know how many floods I’ve been on where the failed HW tank was sitting right next to a floor drain, yet the water ran to every corner of the basement, away from the drain. Under interior framed walls, hitting every bit of flooring and exterior wall drywall, the works.
PS hey I recently learned about sensors you can place near your tank that will message you if water touches them and closes a circuit. If you’re close to home or someone can attend and shut off your main for you in your absence, they seem like a good idea. Two summers ago I came home to a catastrophically failed HW tank that ruptured internally about the same time I was pulling into the garage when I got home. Had it happened when I left work, I would have arrived home to 4-5 feet of water in my basement. I attended a claim once at a hoarder’s house where this has happened and left undetected for days. The water was flowing out of the basement window wells before someone noticed. I ordered two vac trucks to remove several thousand gallons from the basement to effect a repair to the ruptured line. My plumber found 6 dead cats and two live muskrats down there. lol
1776
npub1e7…mfw7d
2026-02-20 09:36:35 CET
in reply to nevent1q…aks6
Author Public Key
npub1e7dj5ymf5nxezvnrnvf6uwfqp4crqschn2q5apjga8jngzfhamqsemfw7dPublished at
2026-02-20 09:36:35 CETEvent JSON
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"content": "Given the failure rate of water heaters and my experience in both new home construction and flood claims management, two things always baffled me. One, why groundworks plumbing in new homes doesn’t have a floor drain that can handle the volume of any completely failed line in the basement or running through the joists and two, why I’ve never met a concrete finisher that EVER slopes all points of a basement slab toward the floor drain. I do t know how many floods I’ve been on where the failed HW tank was sitting right next to a floor drain, yet the water ran to every corner of the basement, away from the drain. Under interior framed walls, hitting every bit of flooring and exterior wall drywall, the works. \n\nPS hey I recently learned about sensors you can place near your tank that will message you if water touches them and closes a circuit. If you’re close to home or someone can attend and shut off your main for you in your absence, they seem like a good idea. Two summers ago I came home to a catastrophically failed HW tank that ruptured internally about the same time I was pulling into the garage when I got home. Had it happened when I left work, I would have arrived home to 4-5 feet of water in my basement. I attended a claim once at a hoarder’s house where this has happened and left undetected for days. The water was flowing out of the basement window wells before someone noticed. I ordered two vac trucks to remove several thousand gallons from the basement to effect a repair to the ruptured line. My plumber found 6 dead cats and two live muskrats down there. lol",
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