Homeowners Disaster! Happy Thanksgiving, I have a Leak in My Ceiling

The American dream, being a homeowner! Owning a home is an accomplishment that almost all of us aspire too. But... Sometimes I miss the days of calling my landlord when things break and things do break! One of the most difficult breaks is when you see water dripping from an area of the house that it shouldn't. Where is it coming from? Oh, if it only were that easy!

This week the crew discusses Chase's Thanksgiving weekend of playing cat and mouse with the dripping water that was coming from his kitchen ceiling and the steps he took to find said leak (with a professional) and deal with homeowners insurance. 

Transcript

Intro 0:09

Welcome to Top Wealth to me, a Safe Space podcast where we chat about anything and everything related to personal finance. The information contained in this podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. It does not constitute as accounting, legal, tax, or other professional advice.

Chase Peckham 0:32

Hello and welcome. It's December

Felipe Arevalo 0:39

It pra. Yeah, it is. You're right. If you're listening to this, it's December.

Chase Peckham 0:42

Amazing cuz I'm wearing a sweatshirt. We've had very hot Santa Ana weather here lately and I woke up the other morning or yesterday morning and all of a sudden I'm like, what, what happened? And I had to wear like layers now, you know?

Felipe Arevalo 0:58

Yeah.

Chase Peckham 0:59

Layers for us here in San Diego, Diego, or a much different thing than what the rest of the country, most of the rest of the country, uh, considers layers, but, uh, still for us, you know, sweatshirt man.

Felipe Arevalo 1:13

Yeah. Our definition of cold and hot is, is a little different than other parts of the country. And you know, when we go reaching for our sweaters, some other people might be saying, oh, this is great weather. I like when you go somewhere like a tourists atraction like the zoo. And I got the kids bundled up in their sweaters and I'm wearing a hoodie. And then you got people running around in like basketball shorts and a t-shirt. Like, oh, oh, this is a great day. I wish we got this kind of weather back home.

Chase Peckham 1:42

Right.<laugh> no doubt.

Felipe Arevalo 1:44

In November. Yeah.

Chase Peckham 1:45

Oh yeah. There, there's no doubt about that. It's funny cuz we're just coming off Thanksgiving and I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving with your family.

Felipe Arevalo 1:53

I did. Thank you. And I hope you did as well and not too much Black Friday, uh, cyber Monday

Chase Peckham 1:59

Shopping this week. No, no shopping for me at all actually. Uh, and it, it's gonna be an interesting year cuz we, we put up our lights and all that stuff, but with our first year, our first holidays without Kerri, uh, it, Thanksgiving went okay. But the putting up the lights and decorating for Christmas was a little tough, uh, for us. Um, more me, my daughter did fine. Clay wanted no part of it. Um, but it was an eventful Thanksgiving. It was hot. We had these Santa Anas

Felipe Arevalo 2:31

It was,

Chase Peckham 2:32

And there was a big leak in my kitchen that I came home to. Uh, after we were done doing our, our, uh, every year we do our, uh, flag football game with a bunch of us families. And then it's evolved to kickball because it involves more people. Um, and uh, I came home and there was water on my,

Felipe Arevalo 2:56

Oh no.

Chase Peckham 2:57

Kitchen counter. And I looked up up and I could see this just this teeny little drip kind of coming out just above my cabinets. And I was like, oh no. So I got to spin.

Felipe Arevalo 3:09

That's not good.

Chase Peckham 3:10

Yeah, it was so fun. We've, we've talked about this before, having an emergency fund and having, um, you know, do it yourself. I'm pretty sure I'm not gonna be able to find a leak by myself and or replace it. So I called the plumber and thought it was my toilet because in the vicinity of where this drip was coming is where the master bathroom toilet kind of would be. It would be pretty close,

Felipe Arevalo 3:38

Right.

Chase Peckham 3:39

And I'm thinking, okay, that would make sense. And so the plumber came in on Black Friday,

Felipe Arevalo 3:44

oh man,

Chase Peckham 3:45

no, black Friday.

Felipe Arevalo 3:46

So he, he doesn't get to shop either.

Chase Peckham 3:47

I got no Black Friday deals, none. I'm like, dude, it's Black Friday, how come? You know, what's the, let's, let's give us a little bit of a deal here. Uh, and he said, yeah, we don't do that. And I said, yeah, I have to.

Felipe Arevalo 3:57

No doorbusters for calling extra early.

Chase Peckham 4:00

Absolutely not. No. In fact, if anything he's like, why are you bothering me<laugh>? And it turns out that the toilet was not set correctly and was causing a little bit of a leak onto my floor. And so he had to reset it, put in a taller wax ring cuz the wax ring that was originally there didn't fit. And what that turned out to be was when we had our floor floors redone in the bathroom, they just put it on top of the actual tile instead of ripping out the tile. And so that floor is a little bit higher and they didn't, they didn't plummet, so to speak, so.

Felipe Arevalo 4:44

Right.

Chase Peckham 4:45

It, there was a little bit off. Um, and so we thought, okay, this is awesome.

Felipe Arevalo 4:50

Problem solved.

Chase Peckham 4:50

This, fixed it, it's 500 bucks. Okay. You know what I I, I've used this plumber many times. They are super fair. Local guy, sole proprietor. You know, he, this isn't some big, you know, conglomerate that is doing the plumbing thing. He, he is a legitimate like, local guy who does all his marketing through our areas, face, you know, mom's Facebook pages and stuff and just, but a super, super nice guy. And so they, they, they leave and they, he and uh, turn the water back on in the house cuz we went a day and a half without water.

Felipe Arevalo 5:32

Oh, that's tough,

Chase Peckham 5:33

I found this on Thanksgiving day. I shut the water off to the house, which is the first thing you should do. You just, yeah, I am not a plumber. I'm gonna nip this sucker in the bud. Just turn off the water now much to my kids dismay because it was dad, where do we go to the bathroom?

Felipe Arevalo 5:50

Right.<laugh>.

Chase Peckham 5:51

And for the kids, you know, for my son and I, it was, well you just go outside in the, the backyard behind a tree and just kind of hide.

Felipe Arevalo 5:59

Right.

Chase Peckham 5:59

And that just horrified my daughter. She's like, I am not doing that. And I'm like, well, you can go next to next door neighbor or so we did. I drove her over to her friend's house and she went to the bathroom over there. She, she did not find that very comfortable, understandably so she didn't have to do that. And we, and myself and Kerri, we, we were not much campers. So my kids have not really learned how to rough it, uh, much. And, and mostly I think that's because I didn't love roughing it. So anyway.

Felipe Arevalo 6:31

But you were in the mountains. You guys didn't?

Chase Peckham 6:33

I grew up in the mountains, but I haven't, there's a reason I chose San Diego, my friend. I love to visit there. I love to, uh, you know, visit and go boating and do all those things and go skiing and all that. But, um, I, I am not a mountainous kind of guy. Um, I am not a man's man, so to speak. Uh, I, I just, you know, when it comes to the do it yourselfers, we've had this discussion, my brother very good at it. And that's because that's, you know, my dad good at it. Um, the funny thing is, I'm the one with patience in the family and yet I never had the patience or the want to learn how to do any of that, which has probably end up costing me a few extra dollars these days. But at the same time, I have never cost myself three times as much because I thought I could do it and I didn't then screwed it up.

Felipe Arevalo 7:26

Right.

Chase Peckham 7:27

Ten, times worse than it would've been if I'd had just called in a professional in the first place. My brother and I argue about this all the time. You and I have had discussions about this. So it ends up though that turn the water back on and about 35, 40 minutes later I notice water on my counter again. And I go, oh my God. So I called him back, left a message, I still have water. Uh, so I get a call back, Hey, you know, by this time it's late, late afternoon Friday, you know, I can come back, but once I'm in, you know, it could be an all nighter. And I said, you know, we'll just turn it off, turn off the water again. And he said, I can be there at 9:00 AM. So he came in 9:00 AM Saturday morning and we started the procedure and of try cutting, starting to cutting, cut out places and walls,<laugh>, we ran into so many different things cuz you don't know what's back there and where the leak was coming through, it was solid that there was not, it wasn't just drywall where you could just cut through. So he went through and we're cutting out these little squares every time we'd run into another, they call'em boxes or in inset box, it's kind of like where they would fit in between pipes and then electrical and all that kind of stuff.

Felipe Arevalo 8:51

Right.

Chase Peckham 8:51

So we kept running into issues. Finally, the plumber that came out was he, he was a hired hand and been a part of the company for a little while, but he finally called his boss Scott. And Scott came out and said, I'm, I, we gotta figure this out. Now the lucky news is, is these local, so he's been in tons of houses and my neighborhood is the, it's I think the earliest, it's 2002, my neighborhood's 2004. They were all built. And he said, you know, I'm very familiar with the plumbing issues.

Felipe Arevalo 9:22

I know where all the pipes are.

Chase Peckham 9:23

They put these houses up very quickly. Yeah. Very expensive place to live. Not necessarily houses that were built super well. Um, and that's kind of, you know, part of what you'll find when you purchase a home in, uh, an area where they are mass produced. Right.

Felipe Arevalo 9:42

Right.

Chase Peckham 9:42

It's a.

Felipe Arevalo 9:43

They're trying to knock out as many as they can.

Chase Peckham 9:45

Absolutely. They just put'em all up, absolutely sell'em before they're even up and they hurry. And we've had plumbing issues before this, this whole neighborhood is notorious for plumbing issues. Um, whether it be, you know, they were just being super fast and doing a nail gun and putting a, you know, nail accidentally went a little bit too far through the wood and pierced into a pipe and then eventually that pipe wears out and that there's the leak.

Felipe Arevalo 10:09

Right.

Chase Peckham 10:10

Uh, not what happened to mine, but after they decided they'd come in and they'd go through the backside of my kitchen wall, which is now into the wall of my entryway, had to move everything out out of around there. And

Felipe Arevalo 10:24

It's like in that little closet.

Chase Peckham 10:25

Oh yeah. Now it's, yes. And, and now it's got, we had to go up through the ceiling, finally they found it. And there it was just a small little leak, um, that had sprung. And I happened to catch it relatively early we think. And you know, those things, if they're in the middle of nowhere and it's going through this wood and then to finally has to show itself as soon as there was the first sign I turned off the water and which, you know, is it's, I, I'd like to pat myself on the back, but I just did that because we've heard horror stories.

Felipe Arevalo 11:02

Right.

Chase Peckham 11:03

Um, but it turns out, uh, that it was a good move. And, and that's what we are gonna talk about is we always wonder what is the right procedure? What, what should you do? Now if you're thinking about whether you're in a car accident and you have insurance, do I want to use it? Do I want to call my insurance company? Cuz is it even gonna be worth letting them know because I don't want my insurance premiums to go up

Felipe Arevalo 11:28

To go up. Right.

Chase Peckham 11:29

Right. And is it gonna be worth it? Is my deductible gonna even cover the damage Right now if it's a major accident, you know, I gotta call.

Felipe Arevalo 11:38

You know it's gonna come into play.

Chase Peckham 11:39

Right,

Felipe Arevalo 11:40

Right.

Chase Peckham 11:41

But that's the thing is when you are shopping for insurance and when you're shopping for, uh, you know, homeowner's insurance, which is even more interesting, uh, we have to choose what plans we want, how much we want covered. And Kerri and I had decided that if we were gonna do it, we would have a higher deductible, but we would be able to have the coverage that if we had to pay the, the deductible and because we knew we were gonna, we saved for emergency funds and those kinds of things that we would be covered to almost rebuild our house. Right.

Felipe Arevalo 12:18

Right.

Chase Peckham 12:18

So if something happened and we had a completely na Now that was at the time by the way. So inflation has changed.

Felipe Arevalo 12:26

That's true.

Chase Peckham 12:26

So I'm not sure I could tear it down and rebuild a entire house now. But it's, it's a pretty substantial amount, but it's 1% of, so my deductible is 1% of whatever my total payout would be.

Felipe Arevalo 12:42

Right

Chase Peckham 12:42

My total coverage would be, uh, to replace everything in the house. Um, so it's gonna be around$5,000 deductible for me. Uh, a little bit north of that actually. So I don't even know if this damage that has been caused is going to.

Felipe Arevalo 13:01

Rack up that high.

Chase Peckham 13:02

Rack up my deductible. Yeah. But the, this is the really important thing. I've had many people who have gone through these plumbing issues and it ended up getting into their slabs, which into the cement, uh, they were outta their house for seven months.

Felipe Arevalo 13:19

Yeah.

Chase Peckham 13:19

And it was, they didn't, you know, they didn't know whether they, they called their insurance right away. And the insurance company said, oh, okay, no problem. We'll do this. And here is our list of some of, of our vendors, creditors or whatever vendors Right,

Felipe Arevalo 13:31

Right.

Chase Peckham 13:31

In the local area that we, you know, or whatever. And so I'm wondering, do I need to do that? I've already had the plumber come out. So I talked to my plumber, I said, look, I trust you. What's the best way to do this? He goes, look, I know these restoration guys, they're also local here. They're a brother. They're, they're two brothers that own the company. They're not this big giant conglomerate that has this,

Felipe Arevalo 13:56

Fleet of people.

Chase Peckham 13:56

Just this fleet of people. And also their checklist of how they're gonna go about doing this. Right.

Felipe Arevalo 14:04

Right.

Chase Peckham 14:05

And so he said, I've, I've already dinged them. If you're good, you know, they'll come out and they'll just kind of assess the situation because now that the plumbing is fixed, there's still holes in my wall. And.

Felipe Arevalo 14:20

Right.

Chase Peckham 14:21

My plumber could see that there was some water damage. So come Monday morning they all come out, uh, the restoration guy comes out and he's got this.

Felipe Arevalo 14:33

Makes more holes in your walls.

Chase Peckham 14:34

No, well, not yet.

Felipe Arevalo 14:35

Okay.

Chase Peckham 14:36

But he had this really cool infrared like camera thing, but it picks up moisture. So he.

Felipe Arevalo 14:43

Oh that's cool.

Chase Peckham 14:43

Could literally just aim it at the certain parts of the walls and where it was soaked and saturated, it turned red.

Felipe Arevalo 14:49

Okay.

Chase Peckham 14:50

Oh my goodness. You could.

Felipe Arevalo 14:51

Technology.

Chase Peckham 14:52

See it all the way through a bunch of different parts of my wall. So

Felipe Arevalo 14:56

Start looking like a CSI episode.

Chase Peckham 14:57

It was, it was pretty cool. Cool. And he's taking pictures of it. So we've got everything. Um, so he basically said, let me step back for a second. The plumber said, don't call your insurance company yet until you talk to the restoration guys. And, and here's why you want, it's almost at a point where it's even the insurance, depending on the insurance is, and I have a really, really good insurance, uh, USAA and I'll just throw'em out there cuz you know, I've been with'em for 19 years. I found out because they always, every time I talked to'em this weekend, they'd say, thank you for your 19 years.

Felipe Arevalo 15:39

Right.

Chase Peckham 15:39

By the way, the exact amount of time that Kerri and I have been together, which is really kind of interesting, um, how that timeline worked out. But it's almost as if you want, they almost want you to get the work done first and then they'll work this out. So that was news to me. I thought that we knew, I knew all of this, like Right, you gotta go through this process and do I even wanna let my insurance know e anyway.

Felipe Arevalo 16:06

Right.

Chase Peckham 16:06

So I found out through this and and through him that he's like, this is what U S A A is gonna do. This is what, you know, they're a great company to work with. I've had very good experience with them. And they're gonna send you an email. You're gonna, they're gonna answer a bunch of questions. He even stuck around while I was on the phone with the insurance and if there was questions they were asking me, he would answer it. He, he, he knew the terminology and it was super interesting because it was like almost like a medical insurance. We know we have it. Right.

Felipe Arevalo 16:39

Right.

Chase Peckham 16:40

But we have no idea what goes on behind the scenes.

Felipe Arevalo 16:43

Right.

Chase Peckham 16:44

We just know some stuff gets paid, we pay the deductible.

Felipe Arevalo 16:47

<laugh> Exactly.

Chase Peckham 16:47

But in the medical industry Right. They will charge a certain amount, but that doesn't mean that's what they get paid.

Felipe Arevalo 16:54

Right.

Chase Peckham 16:55

The insurance that this is what we're gonna pay.

Felipe Arevalo 16:58

When we did the medical billing episode, I had no clue what a C P T code was until she was telling us about it. And I was like, oh, I guess that really does make sense that there would be a system like that.

Chase Peckham 17:07

Exactly.

Felipe Arevalo 17:08

I never thought about it.

Chase Peckham 17:09

There's a, it's so similar in the way this works too. And so bottom line is, is I've learned that you should go with, when it comes to your house, when it comes to those things, go with a company that know that you get referred to you, that you know what's going on that knows what's going on and how to handle the system. Because you could get lost if you go in the right, in the wrong direction. You could have too many things going on. And here's why. When you, the plumber doesn't do restoration, they'll cut into your walls but they're not gonna patch your, your stuff. I.

Felipe Arevalo 17:48

put it back.

Chase Peckham 17:49

Right. No, they fixed the plumbing.

Felipe Arevalo 17:50

Right.

Chase Peckham 17:51

So you've gotta have a contractor or somebody that comes out. But if you have water leaks, then you need to call in somebody with restoration because they have to dry it out and they gotta figure out is there water damage? Cuz if you have water damage and you don't dry that out, you could get mold. And mold is not good for anybody.

Felipe Arevalo 18:08

Right.

Chase Peckham 18:10

Uh, we don't get the quote unquote nasty mold that they might get in the south or in other parts of the country. But it's still not healthy. You still don't want mold,

Felipe Arevalo 18:18

You don't want it there.

Chase Peckham 18:19

Right. No, it's, it's not a good thing. So you wanna be able to,

Felipe Arevalo 18:23

And it's not Let me spray some Lysol in there and it's good to go.

Chase Peckham 18:25

Right. And that, by the way, that was a question that, that they asked. Hey, did you notice mold before the leak? Oh, absolutely not. Cause if you did, that means you're neglecting it. That means you knew there was something wrong. Something was there already<laugh>. So, you know, when something like this happens, your first reaction is, oh my God, it's gonna be so I can't believe this is happening to me. What are we gonna do? My son was like, dad, or this could be really expensive. You know, cuz I was talking, he heard me talking to this plumber and I'm like, oh,

Felipe Arevalo 18:56

Right.

Chase Peckham 18:56

We're, this could be 50 to a hundred thousand dollars worth of damage and the guy's like, oh, it could be. Yeah. I mean, we don't know. And my son heard that and he, he was just, why is this happening to us Dad, if we, if we can't go to school anymore and we need to come back to Del Norte. And, and, and if, if you want us to, to, to use the money that that, that people helped us with, um, when mom died, I'm like, oh, Clay buddy. Okay, we gotta dis I gotta teach you about insurance too. Cause this is why we have it. Uh, these things happen. And he's like, why are not, why are you not, why are you so calm? I'm like, buddy, because of this is just stuff. Right. This is an inconvenience. This is not gonna be fun. This is not gonna be fixed right away.

Felipe Arevalo 19:42

Right. It's not a quick fix,

Chase Peckham 19:43

But you're okay. We're healthy. We've already been through the really the gnarly stuff with, you know, losing your mom going through medical stuff. I mean, it, it, it, it doesn't get much worse than that. We still get to live in our home that we know of. We're gonna, we're gonna be okay. All right. So just relax. And I said, you know, and, and, and this is a belief is that, that we have, and we've discussed this before, that let the professionals do their job,

Felipe Arevalo 20:12

Do their thing.

Chase Peckham 20:13

People that know what they're doing more than I do. And I was lucky that I had this plumber for so long and I've known Scott for a while and he knows me. And he, he's been out to my house before to help with little stuff. And he's not, he's a local guy. He's not, he doesn't want anything bad to happen because his business is completely on your mouth.

Felipe Arevalo 20:34

Relies on you.

Chase Peckham 20:34

That's right. Yeah. So if he's got a restoration guy that, by the way, they will air it out, clean it all out, but then they will do everything. They will do all the construction. They will pull everything out. They will make sure it all gets done. They will repatch everything. They will get it all repainted. They handle it. Now, if I didn't know any better and I just went into a water restoration, then all of a sudden I gotta find a contractor. I gotta find somebody else that does that. I gotta find a painter. I gotta find all these other things that may not work together very well.

Felipe Arevalo 21:08

They may not play nice Right.

Chase Peckham 21:10

It. Right. And or there might gone out a step. Right. Right. And they go, whoa, okay, well we gotta rip these back out because you know, I gotta, this wasn't done right. Or whatever it might be. And then all of a sudden the price goes through the roof and you don't, you know, you're fighting with insurance. Insurance is saying you didn't. So anyway, that penny wise and dollar foolish is, and I believe this is true, is I am, my, my homeowner's insurance premiums have been pretty good through the years. Even though I, my house was a, you know, it is moderately priced house at the time and yes, it's$5,000 a lot for a deductible. Yeah, it is. But it's also, why do you have the homeowner's insurance

Felipe Arevalo 21:54

To cover that really big expense to protect yourself.

Chase Peckham 21:57

It's the catastrophe It's the big stuff.

Felipe Arevalo 21:59

Right.

Chase Peckham 21:59

And you know that you are, as a homeowner, you are gonna have these things that are gonna break and you're gonna have to fix it. So you're gonna have to put money away for that kind of stuff.

Felipe Arevalo 22:08

It's gonna happen sooner or later. to everyone.

Chase Peckham 22:10

It's definitely gonna happen. Yep. And that's why it didn't freak out. I mean, I've had one pipe leak in this house and believe me, I've heard horror stories about our neighborhood and, and, and plumbing issues, uh, and, and foundation issues and all these. And I haven't had that. So, you know, if you own a home long enough, chances are this kind of stuff's gonna happen.

Felipe Arevalo 22:32

Stuff is gonna break.

Chase Peckham 22:32

That's right. Things get older and you do your best, but there's no way to know. It's not like you're gonna cut wall. There's something you can do outta pipe and go, Hey, let's just check to see how the plumbing's doing.

Felipe Arevalo 22:41

Right. You won't know until it's broken.

Chase Peckham 22:44

That's right. It's sometimes that just stuff happens. And so thank goodness for the, the the word of mouth personalized touch that I got from these guys and they're like, we're gonna handle this. You just relax. Um, you know, called me last night. Hey, we can do, we, we were thinking of we'd start demolition on Wednesday, are you good with that? And I'm like, yeah, you guys let me know and I'll have things ready for you.

Felipe Arevalo 23:10

Yeah.

Chase Peckham 23:10

And just realize that we're gonna be in, there's gonna be no fast fix here. And we also have to realize that we're probably gonna run into other stuff. Right. There's gonna be something that we didn't see.

Felipe Arevalo 23:18

Once you start tearing things apart.

Chase Peckham 23:20

Oh yeah.

Felipe Arevalo 23:21

And you're gonna find stuff<laugh>.

Chase Peckham 23:22

That's right. And uh, but here's the good thing. If you let a company know, and, and I mean obviously a lot of these things have been good, but if you, I, what I didn't know is there is, there is an area of money that when they're looking at it, it's not just the fix it stuff, it's not just that they will take into account the time that this company, so Josh and this crew does to work with my insurance company to fill out all the forms and do it correctly. And so, because bottom line everybody saves more money when things are done correctly. So having somebody, you know, I, I've never had to go through my home homeowner's insurance before. You know, there's a lot of things that we learn as we go that these professionals know better than we do. Even you and me,

Felipe Arevalo 24:11

We don't do it all the time.

Chase Peckham 24:12

Right.

Felipe Arevalo 24:13

Yeah.

Chase Peckham 24:14

We've done podcasts,

Felipe Arevalo 24:15

We don't do this kind of,

Chase Peckham 24:16

No. Yeah. Run into this all the time. So bottom line, I got a lot of holes. I got this big machine that is dehumidifying my house right now. It's, it's, it's

Felipe Arevalo 24:27

A, it's a very loud house.

Chase Peckham 24:28

It's a, it's loud. You heard that? I think we were on the phone earlier this morning and you, you hear it blowing

Felipe Arevalo 24:33

Like, man, are you at the airport?

Chase Peckham 24:35

I know<laugh>. It's, I know. So we're watching TV upstairs for right now and I'm and there's gonna be a time when, you know,

Felipe Arevalo 24:43

You might not have to kitchen.

Chase Peckham 24:43

I'm not gonna have a kitchen. Yeah. And my kids and I are gonna have to eat out.

Felipe Arevalo 24:48

Well you got the Blackstone.

Chase Peckham 24:49

and or eat friends' house. That's right. We do have that. But I don't have a place to do dishes.

Felipe Arevalo 24:54

Get yourself some uh, paper plates.

Chase Peckham 24:56

Oh, okay.

Felipe Arevalo 24:56

Like a picnic type thing.

Chase Peckham 24:57

There you go.

Felipe Arevalo 24:58

Yeah,

Chase Peckham 24:59

I'll be going to visit friends. Thank goodness I've got a lot of friends that already offered to help us out with come eat at their house and stuff like that. Um, but again, that's all taken into consideration. So it's save every receipt from the very beginning. Right. Take pictures of everything. So when you see a leak, take a picture of the leak and take a picture of what the house looked like before. And this goes for, and you should do this every once in a while anyway, if you get burglarized and somebody trashes your house, you've got photos that say this is what it looked like prior to everything being taken.

Felipe Arevalo 25:34

Right.

Chase Peckham 25:34

Or, or my house being ransacked and holes being smashed in the house.

Felipe Arevalo 25:38

Or I did have a TV there.

Chase Peckham 25:39

Right.

Felipe Arevalo 25:39

You know, and that, that was this TV that's not there anymore or whatever these might be.

Chase Peckham 25:43

And the brilliant thing these days is when you take a picture, it's automatically timestamped. Right. Literally the minute, hour date that you took that picture.

Felipe Arevalo 25:53

Sometimes even location,

Chase Peckham 25:54

That file says it. Right. Exactly. Yeah. location.

Felipe Arevalo 25:56

It's all in there.

Chase Peckham 25:57

Exactly. So we have done, and it was really kind of fun. Like, you know, if if this negative thing that was going on and, and, but the, my insurance, the insurance guy was at USA was so awesome. He's like, oh, you're okay. Right. Okay. You're in good. You're doing everything in the right order. This is, this is great, thank you. Uh, and then got the adjuster and now I gotta just talk to the adjuster and we, they come out. But it's basically document everything. Keep every receipt you get. It's, so it turns out the only thing that will not be covered in this whole thing, um, as we go is the pipe itself. Because that would be considered.

Felipe Arevalo 26:37

The one that caused the problem?

Chase Peckham 26:38

The one that caused the problem. That's the only thing that I'm gonna have to come out of my pocket outside of the, the uh, deductible.

Felipe Arevalo 26:45

Yeah.

Chase Peckham 26:46

And it might be that through all of this that the, the, the charges and, and the cost won't even add up to 5,000. I don't think that's gonna be the case. I think it's gonna be much more than that.

Felipe Arevalo 26:58

Yeah.

Chase Peckham 26:59

Especially cuz we have an open concept house. So the kitchen bleeds into the living room. The living room bleeds into the dining room. They, it's all like a shared ceiling. There's rounder, like si there was a special term for it and I can't remember what it was called, but the walls are kind of rounded from the side to the bottom. So it, it's continuous paint

Felipe Arevalo 27:20

On the inside.

Chase Peckham 27:21

Correct. so they've gotta match everything. It's gotta look. Right. And so if you just paint it, it's always gonna look like it was painted. So the whole place has to be repainted.

Felipe Arevalo 27:29

And then if it's in your bathroom upstairs, if it's on the bathroom floors, did it get into your bedroom floors? Did it cut there?

Chase Peckham 27:36

But we're lucky it's not gonna get to that cause it's below all that.

Felipe Arevalo 27:38

That's good. Okay.

Chase Peckham 27:39

So the pipe was below all of that. So all the damage is gonna be below the pipe.

Felipe Arevalo 27:43

Oh, okay.

Chase Peckham 27:44

And it looks like we caught it early enough that it's just inside the walls by

Felipe Arevalo 27:49

Just everything down underneath

Chase Peckham 27:50

It. Yeah. Now what we don't know is how far down did that get? And Kerri and I did a, we had our kitchen completely redone five years ago and we did this beautiful back, back splash and it was, it was the kitchen she wanted. Um, and we're hoping it doesn't go too far down that wall because the chances of us of a company having that exact backsplash still is almost a zero. So I would have to pick out new backsplash and then I would not have the kitchen that my wife made, which would be kind of sad. So from a personal level, I'm really hoping that, uh, it's just cabinets and it's just, uh, drywall that needs to be dried out. Maybe a new two by four here and there. But for the most part it's uh, the, the, the restoration guys feel like this is not gonna be a big job, so.

Felipe Arevalo 28:38

That's good.

Chase Peckham 28:39

Yes. That was, that was,

Felipe Arevalo 28:40

That's a good thing.

Chase Peckham 28:41

A very, very good thing.

Felipe Arevalo 28:43

But can you imagine if you had gone out of town for Thanksgiving?

Chase Peckham 28:46

I know.

Felipe Arevalo 28:47

And you didn't come back till Monday.

Chase Peckham 28:48

Yep. Well and that's a good point. You put, um, when we go out town for more than three days, I turn off the water to my house anyway.

Felipe Arevalo 28:54

Oh, okay.

Chase Peckham 28:55

Because I just because of that, just in case something happens, I don't want to come back and, and cuz I had friends that, that happened to them and they came back in their house.

Felipe Arevalo 29:05

Now it's like days were

Chase Peckham 29:06

Destroyed. Yeah. All new floors. Oh. They had to be out of their house for a long time. Just miserable. And then you're dealing with, you know, staying in a hotel and getting reimbursed for that and where you eat and the kids still have to go to school and you still have to go to work and how are you gonna do? It's just so, yeah. I mean and that's something that's smart. I mean, if you go away and you're gonna be gone for more than a couple days, turn off the water to your house or, or have somebody come by like a neighbor or something to.

Felipe Arevalo 29:35

Check on it.

Chase Peckham 29:36

Yep.

Felipe Arevalo 29:36

Yeah.

Chase Peckham 29:37

Yeah. But even then, I mean, how much, how even if I had a neighbor come in and they just looked, would they see,

Felipe Arevalo 29:44

They may not have seen, if you look into your, you just peek into your kitchen and like, oh, everything looks good. You may not notice that droplets or that accumulating water on the counter.

Chase Peckham 29:54

A hundred percent. Um, yep. Yeah. You're, You're a hundred percent right.

Felipe Arevalo 29:58

You're also lucky that it was dripping onto your counter.

Chase Peckham 30:00

Yeah.

Felipe Arevalo 30:00

Had it not dripped onto your counter and just stayed in the wall.

Chase Peckham 30:03

I wouldn't have seen it.

Felipe Arevalo 30:04

You wouldn't have seen

Chase Peckham 30:05

It. Yes. I wouldn't have known it was there.

Felipe Arevalo 30:07

You would've never noticed until

Chase Peckham 30:09

Something bad really bad happened. Yeah.

Felipe Arevalo 30:12

Right.

Chase Peckham 30:13

Yes. And, and it was good enough that, you know, the, the leak was good enough to where it came through. Uh, which is Yeah. We got really lucky that way. That's, leaks are scary. You just don't know.

Felipe Arevalo 30:23

Right.

Chase Peckham 30:24

So it's, it's good to be a bit, uh, be be as well planned out for the unexpected as you can be. Uh, and, and just realize that these things are gonna happen. You know, it's just, nobody's gonna go unscathed. You live long enough<laugh>, it's gonna happen. There's gonna be a car accident or a car ding or a.

Felipe Arevalo 30:44

Yeah.

Chase Peckham 30:45

Uh, you know, a rock into your.

Felipe Arevalo 30:47

Broken windshield or whatever.

Chase Peckham 30:48

That's right. It's just, it's part of living life. So don't take it all too seriously. Just relax and um, if you can put the money away, um, and that's why we talk about you don't wanna be house poor. You don't want to have 60% of your income going towards your house. Cause that means that there's the living expenses and all that, it's gonna be a lot tougher to negotiate. Uh, and and your chances are that you're gonna have to go into debt.

Felipe Arevalo 31:15

Right.

Chase Peckham 31:16

To fix this. And that's, that's dangerous.

Felipe Arevalo 31:18

And you, that's the thing with uh, renting home buying argument. I that some people would say that's a tally for renting.

Chase Peckham 31:24

Yeah.

Felipe Arevalo 31:24

Because absolutely. You, you just tell your landlord and they have to fix it.

Chase Peckham 31:29

That's right. But they're wise. This is a heck of a lot cheaper. Especially with the value of my home.

Felipe Arevalo 31:36

Right.

Chase Peckham 31:37

So Yes. On a monthly basis and you're younger and you don't wanna deal with that stuff. I a hundred percent.

Felipe Arevalo 31:44

Yeah. I agree With that. Cause I have a friend who recently had uh, uh, they were getting something fixed and the person who was doing the plumbing or the welding or something accidentally started a fire in their bathroom.

Chase Peckham 31:56

Oh geez.

Felipe Arevalo 31:57

And there were smoke damage and whatnot. They had the inconvenience that the person who the apartment complex said this is gonna take forever to fix and we gotta get permits. Cause there was like multiple units and.

Chase Peckham 32:08

Oh gosh.

Felipe Arevalo 32:09

So they had to move out. Uh, and now they're, you know, it's like well you kind of have to move out ASAP because you don't really, you know, we're only gonna cover the hotel for certain amount of days and now you're just moving all of a sudden. So there's that neg Yeah. They don't have to pay it, but now they have to move.

Chase Peckham 32:26

Right. And that's an argument for renter's insurance by the way. That's why you should have renter's insurance because not only but you're gonna not only be have your renter's insurance that'll take care of you.

Felipe Arevalo 32:36

Your stuff.

Chase Peckham 32:36

Exactly. But also for that kind kind of stuff. If you have to be out in pay hotel and then on top of fighting with the insurance company, that is the insurer of the apartment complex.

Felipe Arevalo 32:47

Right.

Chase Peckham 32:48

Right. If, if it's an apartment complex and not an individual,

Felipe Arevalo 32:51

A one off homeowner.

Chase Peckham 32:53

Right. Cuz they're gonna have homeowner's insurance. But you should always protect yourself with a renter's insurance too. And it's cheap. Do not pay cheap and not pay for that.

Felipe Arevalo 33:00

Yeah. The renter's insurance when we were at the apartment was something ridiculously the 20 something dollars if 22 bucks or something like that. That's, it was only cuz it

Chase Peckham 33:11

When I was Renting.

Felipe Arevalo 33:12

That was only cuz you add things like the, you can add things like the wedding rings.

Chase Peckham 33:17

Wedding rings, All that stuff, which we have to add to. Right.

Felipe Arevalo 33:21

Which you have to add to the homeowner by

Chase Peckham 33:22

The way, that's something you should update with your homeowners. Anytime you get anything of value new that's gonna be in your house.

Felipe Arevalo 33:27

Right.

Chase Peckham 33:28

Uh, you need let them know and have that secondarily insured. That's important. Yeah. If it's really expensive, don't go doing that for a tv.

Felipe Arevalo 33:37

Yeah. I got a new iPad. Yeah. That's unnecessary. I

Chase Peckham 33:40

Don't think you need to do that. Yeah.<laugh> you just take a picture of that, they'll cover it.

Felipe Arevalo 33:43

Right. Or save your receipt from Target or Amazon or whoever you got it from.

Chase Peckham 33:48

Yeah. Well we're coming up on the end. We're gonna have at least one more episode, uh, here in 2022 before we're gonna go on hiatus and we will call season six, put it in the books and we will come back in January.

Felipe Arevalo 34:04

Yeah.

Chase Peckham 34:04

With season seven. But, uh,

Felipe Arevalo 34:06

We have that live episode coming up too. And we do during the, during the SWYM Live.

Chase Peckham 34:11

That's right. We do have that coming up. That's great.

Felipe Arevalo 34:14

So we join in on the Swim Live? Check it out on Eventbright Search DebtWave and you can be part of the episode. You ask us a question or, or you know, you don't have to talk, you can just drop it in the chat and maybe we can address it or, you know, have it be an interactive episode if there's any listeners who just wanna be on a podcast.

Chase Peckham 34:35

Absolutely. We're also gonna talk about building credit and all the different types of companies and or, um, products that are out there that can, that say they're gonna help build your credit in a non-credit traditional way. Uh, and so we're gonna look at, at a company called chime.com and, uh, a few others and discuss are these things, can they really do it? They say they can do. And that'll be next time. And that'll be the end of 2022 before we all go out for the holidays. So stay with us. Uh, we'll see you next week. And again, we love ratings. Go to Apple, uh, go to, uh, and give us that five star rating. Spotify all wherever you get your podcast. Let'em know how much you'll love us. We'll see you next time.