Water Heater Failure — Kaysville, UT

Loss Type: Category 1 water damage / Water Heater Tank Failure
Location: Kaysville, UT near Flint Street
Response Time: 53 minutes
Job Duration: 4 days
Insurance: Yes – Nationwide

The Situation

A homeowner near Flint Street in Kaysville called us on a Thursday morning after discovering their garage floor covered in water. A 12-year-old 50-gallon water heater had failed overnight, releasing its full tank volume across the garage floor. Water had migrated under the shared drywall at the garage-to-house transition and saturated the base of the adjacent laundry room and utility hallway inside the home.

The homeowner had already shut off the water supply to the tank before calling. Our water damage restoration team was on-site within 53 minutes.

The Problem

The garage itself was concrete slab and relatively straightforward to address. The more significant issue was the water that had migrated through the bottom of the shared wall into the finished interior. Moisture readings at the laundry room baseboard and the base of the utility hallway drywall showed elevated levels extending approximately 6 feet from the garage wall. The wall cavity between the garage and laundry room had absorbed water through the bottom plate and was holding moisture inside the framing.

Because the garage-to-living-space wall is a fire-rated assembly in Utah residential construction, any drywall removal required care to maintain the integrity of that assembly. The homeowner filed a water damage insurance claim with Nationwide the same morning and the adjuster authorized the scope by early afternoon.

What We Did

We performed water extraction from the garage slab and began moisture detection inside the home using a thermal camera and pin meter combination to map the full moisture boundary. The full affected area measured approximately 180 square feet across the laundry room and utility hallway.

Rather than removing drywall from the fire-rated garage wall, we drilled 1.5-inch access holes at the base of the wall cavity on the laundry room side and injected directed airflow into the cavity using injectidry wall drying panels. This technique allows us to begin structural drying of the wall framing from the interior without compromising the fire-rated assembly on the garage side. The drying system included:

• Injectidry wall drying panels covering 3 wall cavity bays
• 2 LGR dehumidification units running continuously in the laundry room and utility hallway
• 3 air movers directed at the floor transition and baseboard areas
• Twice-daily moisture readings logged across all affected materials

The access holes were plugged and patched as part of our drywall repair and closeout process on day 4 after all readings reached target moisture content.

The Outcome

No drywall removal was required on the interior side. The fire-rated garage wall assembly was maintained intact. The laundry room and utility hallway dried completely in 4 days. Nationwide covered the full scope. The homeowner arranged for a plumber to install a new water heater with a drain pan and floor drain connection — a recommendation we included in our job documentation to help prevent a recurrence.

“They showed up fast, found water inside my walls that I had no idea was there, and dried everything without tearing up my laundry room. The whole thing was handled professionally start to finish.”

— G. Nielson, Kaysville UT

Upkeep provides water damage restoration in Kaysville and across Davis County.

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