Laundry room slope question.

[Jodi]

We recently finished our basement - about 1 yr ago. We have just noticed that the washing machine has a leak. All the water ran behind the washing machine into the closet of the bedroom - rather than on the tile in the laundry room and towards the drain which is present in the adjoining furnace room. We did not detect a leak because of the slope of the floor. Should they not have sloped the laundry room floor prior to laying tile so the water could be redirected towards the drain. There is now water damage to the new baseboards and drywall and Mold. Am I right to feel that the contractor should fix the laundry room slope as well as the cost to repair the resultant water damage?

Thank you for any wisdom and input.

 

[Cacher_Chick]

In a perfect world, all floors in a house are flat and level, all corners are perfectly square, and all walls are plumb. In practice, that is the goal, but very seldom does it really work out that way in the real world.

For the floor in a room to be sloped towards a central drain, the entire floor would have to be built like a shower pan, where there would be a step up at the doorway, as the entire perimeter of the room would have to be higher than the drain. Then the entire surface of the floor would have to be made completely waterproof, before any tile is set. (Tile & grout are not waterproof). This kind of construction would need to be specified in the original plans, and could add thousands of dollars to the cost of a home.

Instead, it makes much more financial sense to install the washing machine in a drip tray or drain pan, which has always been the recommended practice, but often gets overlooked by the appliance sales person or the homeowner, who is ultimately responsible for thir home.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[hj]

The ONLY Way that would happen would be if he had torn up the ENTIRE floor and regraded everything, which was not likely to happen for a simple revision.