Flooded - need whole house remodel

[meadow lark]

  On Monday our house was flooded from the rain storms and had 6” of standing water in our whole house. We are not in a flood zone but since we are in Louisiana we have flood insurance anyway.  We will need a new kitchen, 1 total new bathroom, 1 partial new bathroom, and drywall through the whole house.  Also new flooring throughout the house.
  I’m hoping people here might have recommendations on brands, where to buy - Looking for inexpensive/good quality/attractive.

[norajean]

IKEA is good for cheap kitchens. Bathrooms and flooring can be found at Home Depot.

You are smart to have flood insurance!

[ender]

Ooof, sorry you're dealing with this. Not at all a great time to have to do this type of home repairs either with building prices so high.

I second the Ikea recommendations, you can do a one stop shop there often if you want.

[uniwelder]

Also sorry this happened to you.  I don't have any suggestions about remodeling.  You might not want to deal with my nosy questioning, but I wonder what your thoughts are on the future?  Likelihood of dealing with this again and whether you'd sell and move somewhere at higher elevation?

[Dicey]

Oh, no! Sorry you're dealing with this. Another vote for IKEA. I also love LVP flooring. Oh, and appliances are in short supply. Order them as soon as you know what you need and expect them to be delayed. Fingers crossed that it's as painless as possible.

[yachi]

When my rental house flooded, we went with a fire & water restoration company, followed by a residential contractor.  The restoration company did all the demo, moisture tested the remaining walls, advised what surfaces needed replacing, and brought in commercial-level dehumidifiers.  These were the size of a recliner.  I would have been lost on what to remove, and may have removed too little without them.  The restoration company worked directly for my insurance company, and helped us to establish what they would pay for (essentially everything removed they would pay to replace).

The residential contractor happened to be a brother-in-law's company.  They used kitchen cabinets from Home Depot - they come assembled already.  And a custom countertop - we used formica since that's similar to what was in the house before.  We replaced the old hard wood floor with LVT, and moved a wall dividing the kitchen from the hallway.  You now have to walk through the kitchen to get to rooms, but getting rid of the hallway meant doubling the size of the too-small kitchen.

The renovation ended up so good, and the pain in the butt from the damage so stressful, that we decided to sell the place.

[Syonyk]

Definitely get one of the disaster recovery companies in to dehumidify stuff and offer some advice on mold.

You don't want to miss something now and have creeping mold problems in a few years.

[Dicey]

FYI - Brace yoursrlf, those giant dehumidifier fans suck down a ton of electricity. You don't need any more nasty surprises. They do the job, but they're expensive to operate.

[Villanelle]

FYI - Brace yoursrlf, those giant dehumidifier fans suck down a ton of electricity. You don't need any more nasty surprises. They do the job, but they're expensive to operate.

Yes!  But when our rental flooded, our insurance would have covered it (they said they'd use an average of past utility costs and then pay the difference).  I say "would have covered" because since it was a rental and the bill was in the tenant's name, they said she would need to claim it on her renter's policy so we never got to details.

Also, your insurance will likely cover a contractor and they can probably recommend brands.  And your insurance likely covers like-for-like so it may not make sense to go inexpensive. Start with a call to insurance, and then to flood mitigation if you haven't already done that. 

 

[meadow lark]

In terms of moving - not yet.   I’ve thought about moving into an RV, so we can drive away in case of hurricanes.  But this was just a thunderstorm (that ended up dumping 15” on us).  So no warning.  The house is 41 yrs old, never flooded before, this area doesn’t flood - I would have to move to a different state to reduce my future risk!  And I love my friends, my wife owns a retail store, so it’s hard to move.  All that said, Louisiana is on the front end of climate change for sure.

We’ve had 4 room size dehumidifiers going for 5 days.  We tried to rent a big one but we couldn’t get one ( thousands of people trying at the same time).  My friends and family are helping - the demo was directed by a friend who is a contractor.   He actually tried to buy a commercial dehumidifier and is still waiting.  Turns out the rental fee for 4 days covers the cost of buying one. We were able to open up the walls within 24 hours and spray with mold remover instead of waiting several days for a remediation company.  The FEMA insurance adjuster told us we were farther along than anyone else he had seen.  My BIL was an insurance adjuster and is helping.  Grateful bc I assumed if the appliances were still working they were fine, but he told me to claim them bc the insulation inside them would be wet.

Thanks for the recommendations for IKEA and Home Depot cabinets.

[CowboyAndIndian]

As far as kitchen cabinets go, home depot has particleboard ones. I prefer the plywood ones.

I would suggest going with stockCabinetExpress.com. Plywood cabinets and cheaper than HD.

Just did a laundry room with those cabinets

[Dicey]

In terms of moving - not yet.   I’ve thought about moving into an RV, so we can drive away in case of hurricanes.  But this was just a thunderstorm (that ended up dumping 15” on us).  So no warning.  The house is 41 yrs old, never flooded before, this area doesn’t flood - I would have to move to a different state to reduce my future risk!  And I love my friends, my wife owns a retail store, so it’s hard to move.  All that said, Louisiana is on the front end of climate change for sure.

We’ve had 4 room size dehumidifiers going for 5 days.  We tried to rent a big one but we couldn’t get one ( thousands of people trying at the same time).  My friends and family are helping - the demo was directed by a friend who is a contractor.   He actually tried to buy a commercial dehumidifier and is still waiting.  Turns out the rental fee for 4 days covers the cost of buying one. We were able to open up the walls within 24 hours and spray with mold remover instead of waiting several days for a remediation company.  The FEMA insurance adjuster told us we were farther along than anyone else he had seen.  My BIL was an insurance adjuster and is helping.  Grateful bc I assumed if the appliances were still working they were fine, but he told me to claim them bc the insulation inside them would be wet.

Thanks for the recommendations for IKEA and Home Depot cabinets.

Sounds like the good kind of friends and family. Good luck on a quick resolution!

[yachi]

In terms of moving - not yet.   I’ve thought about moving into an RV, so we can drive away in case of hurricanes.  But this was just a thunderstorm (that ended up dumping 15” on us).  So no warning.  The house is 41 yrs old, never flooded before, this area doesn’t flood - I would have to move to a different state to reduce my future risk!  And I love my friends, my wife owns a retail store, so it’s hard to move.  All that said, Louisiana is on the front end of climate change for sure.

We’ve had 4 room size dehumidifiers going for 5 days.  We tried to rent a big one but we couldn’t get one ( thousands of people trying at the same time).  My friends and family are helping - the demo was directed by a friend who is a contractor.   He actually tried to buy a commercial dehumidifier and is still waiting.  Turns out the rental fee for 4 days covers the cost of buying one. We were able to open up the walls within 24 hours and spray with mold remover instead of waiting several days for a remediation company.  The FEMA insurance adjuster told us we were farther along than anyone else he had seen.  My BIL was an insurance adjuster and is helping.  Grateful bc I assumed if the appliances were still working they were fine, but he told me to claim them bc the insulation inside them would be wet.

Thanks for the recommendations for IKEA and Home Depot cabinets.

Do you have a moisture meter too?  The restoration people we used had these to figure out what surfaces needed removed.  They even discussed whether floorboards needed to be removed.  We ended up being able to keep the floors.

[J.R. Ewing]

Watch out for those disaster mitigation companies.  They're sharks.  They'll tell you to approve every service and sign off on their invoice because "FEMA is approving everything".  FEMA isn't.  Make it know to them early on that'll you'll only reimburse them for what FEMA reimburses you.  Go over their invoice with a fine toothed comb.  Twice.