When Dishwashers Die A Violent Death

Sunday morning I padded into the kitchen to make tea. I noticed a dark color on the parquet flooring near a cushion mat at the sink.

Upon removing the mat, we found that the dishwasher had leaked badly. Perhaps it has been leaking for sometime, I don't know. If so, I never noticed the water. I have someone who helps me with the mopping once a month and she said she hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary there last month. So maybe it has only been leaking a week or so. I have no way to know.

My husband and nephew yanked the dishwasher out of the wall and carried it outside.

I called the insurance company to see if our policy covered this type of thing. It does. Boy, do they move fast when you tell them you're allergic to mold.

Where the dishwasher sat. See the dark colored wood? Damaged wood.

The water went to the sides of the dishwasher, and up the cabinets.

This was the worse damage to the floor.

This doesn't look so good either. That's the side of the kitchen cabinet.

What to do?

This is the bottom of the dishwasher. My husband said this is the pump casing and it split apart.

By 4:30 Monday, a "mitigation team" was out here and they determined all that wood had to come up. ::sniff:: My beautiful parquet floor.

Because the glue was wet (and 30 years old), it came up fairly easily.

This damage is troubling, to say the least.

I kept this floor looking nice for 30 years. They last if you take care of them.

Now I don't know what happens next. The insurance company will decide my floor's fate, I suppose.

The "mitigation" guy said he was going to recommend that the entire floor be replaced. This flooring is no longer available so there is no way we can match it up. Unfortunately the flooring runs into the dining room area as well. We have an open floor concept (we were ahead of our time apparently when we built in 1987) and so the dining room and kitchen run together. That is why there was parquet in the kitchen to begin with.

This looks like the beginning of a very long process.