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Over the summer, we had a leaky kitchen sink incident one day, with no warning whatsoever! I just discovered a big puddle of water on my kitchen floor and the rest is chaos.
Reflecting on everything that transpired, I learned a few things here and there that might help others who are in the same situation.
Things I Learned from the Kitchen Sink Leakage Experience
1. Know Where the Water Switches Are
When I had the kitchen sink leakage inside the cabinet really quickly, there was very little time for me to think, it was mostly reacting to the scenario.
I didn’t know how to tell where the leak was coming from since there was water squirting everywhere from the sink. Think of the silliest TV scenes of a water facet leak and the actor is frantically trying to cover the water while it splashes everywhere. That was me!
The first thing to do is turn off the water supply. I have never even thought about which is the switch for hot or cold water. I had the find out super quick during the chaos. I was so shocked by the whole situation that I even forgot which way to turn it off.
So take a moment to take a look at the water line under the sinks (all the sinks in your house, not just the kitchen sink). Best to identify the knob to turn off hot and cold water.
2. Mobilize Your Under Sink Clutters
Most people hide away quite a few items inside the kitchen sink cabinet. I tried to be organized and have organizers to help keep everything tidy. However, over the years, there was stuff that I literally just tossed inside of the cabinet in a hurry and never looked back.
On the side of the cabinet where I had an organizer, I could easily pull everything out to clear the area without it getting too soaking wet. However, on the side that I didn’t have an organizer, I needed to reach in to pull out those items one by one.
It’s best to make sure all items are on some organizer, especially ones with wheels, so at a moment’s notice, you can remove everything in a short period of time.
I used to also think I liked those under the cabinet organizers that were bolted in. However, I now think that even if you could remove the baskets with the items on them, the tracks will be very difficult to dry.
From now on, I will go with the simple standalone organizer with wheels.
3. Water Travels Down – Slowly
When I am finished with the initial water leak issue by turn off the water supply and dry the cabinet. The first thing I did was to look for water damage, especially on the floor below.
Initially, I didn’t see any water in the room underneath our kitchen (namely the laundry room). I felt so blessed that I caught the leak in time and it didn’t cause further damage.
A few hours later, I rechecked the laundry room. To my disbelief, there was lots of water on top of our dryer, and even went down the side wall which caused the paint on the wall to slide off.
Imagine if I only checked my laundry room once that day. That damage wouldn’t have been dealt with in time.
4. Looks Can Be Deceiving
We used fans and a dehumidifier to dry out the water damage. By the looks of the laundry room ceiling, the water spots were not too big so thought the water damage might not be too bad.
Since we are a bit worried that it could get moldy behind the walls, we called in a clean-up company to come and assess the situation the next day.
When the technician used his sensor to detect how much water was in the kitchen cabinet and floor, then the ceiling and wall of the laundry room, I was so shocked that the sensor was beeping everywhere and the water dampness was very high, given that we’ve used fans and dehumidifier to pull out moisture for the last 24 hours.
The clean-up company has commercial strength fans (called air-mover) and a dehumidifier that we could rent by the day. They also need to cut out portions of the drywall so the fan could be more effective. So that’s what we did. The fans are loud and all equipment is bulky and heavy. It was, however, way more effective than what we could do at home though.
I see how much water the dehumidifier pulled out. It’s literally coming out at the rate of a slow-open faucet.
After having the equipment there for a day, when they re-check everything with the water sensor, the readings are much lower and way less beeping.
5. New Faucet Could Take a While
When the plumber was here to assess. He discovered the leak was due to wear and tear on one of the faucet parts. It’s more complicated to find parts to repair the broken piece than to get a new set of faucets. Since our old one is falling apart anyway, I was not sad that we had to install a new one.
Since we like a certain look that goes with our kitchen color theme, we ended up getting a faucet that is not off the shelf.
We ordered online and the estimated delivery date is the following Monday. Okay, we could deal with no kitchen sink for half a week, right?
The delivery date keeps postponing as we check the status every day. We ended up speaking with customer service to find out why it’s been delayed. Apparently, if a faucet is not something we get off the shelves, the manufacturer needs to custom-build the order for us!
We were told that the manufacturer is waiting for a custom part and it could take up to 4 to 6 weeks before we get our order!!
Pro-Tip
If you are going on a long trip, it’s not a bad idea to shut down all your water. That way you will not be coming back to a flooded house.
We were lucky enough that I was working from home at the time. I can’t even imagine if it happens when we are at work and discover this at the end of the day.
How We Survive Without a Functional Kitchen Sink
We ended up doing most of our dishes in the bathroom sink. It’s not ideal since that sink is shallow and couldn’t hold big pieces of dishes. (We are not the type to use the dishwasher all that much.)
We eat takeout a bit more initially, but that gets old quickly.
I ended up cooking some very simple meals, especially using the Instant Pot. Get your Instant Pot here. Particularly recipes that don’t require a lot of cleaning of ingredients. Check these out!
Instant Pot Baby Back Ribs Recipe
Conclusion
Knowing what I know now, I learned to think about these things in advance, so that when these unexpected things are happening, I would know what to expect.
I will be making a future blog post that talks about choosing a new kitchen faucet. Check back on our site soon.
In the meantime, I’m so grateful that this is behind us and we can get back to cooking.
This is so important! Water can travel so slowly so it’s unnoticable until it ends up as a pool somewhere like you say! These are great tips!