Remodeling Your Kitchen After A Pipe Explosion: How To Proceed

When water pipes burst and you are not present to catch it, it causes a lot of damage. When that damage is in your kitchen, you may have to remodel your kitchen to rescue most of it. If this has recently happened to you and you know you need a kitchen remodeling, here is how to proceed with all that water damage.

First, Make Sure There Is No Mold

A mold remediation specialist can pull up pieces of your kitchen floor and pull back damaged sections of cabinetry and your walls to look for mold. If things are still a little soggy from the burst kitchen pipes, the mold remediation specialist might suggest pulling everything that is wet up and out and letting your kitchen dry out. This will help prevent the development of mold. When there is no mold present, you can proceed.

Second, Pull All the Cabinets and Flooring Out

You probably already started this process when you pulled stuff out to check for mold. Continue the process of pulling out cabinets and pulling up the old floor. Have a dumpster rental ready for the refuse and make sure you have a construction permit from your city to do this project. Once the kitchen is gutted, the next step is installing your cabinets.

Third, Install Your Cabinets/Counters

Some people make the mistake of installing the flooring first. That is a bad idea, since all of the measurements you took for cabinets will then be off by as much as a half inch (or more) with the flooring you chose. Install your new kitchen cabinets first, and if you are installing new countertops, do that now as well.

Fourth, Install Your Flooring

There may be several layers of flooring down depending on how many previous owners of the house have just installed new flooring over old. Pull up all the layers until you reach the base floor. Check again for mold, as you do not want to install a new floor over mold. Then install the new floor directly on top of the base floor. Get help from a remodeling contractor when you need it.

Fifth, (and Finally) Repaint

As long as you have verified that the burst pipes have not damaged the walls to the point where the walls will need to be redone, you can repaint. Just to make sure, use a paint with a built-in mold killer and a stain covering agent. Cover all of the visible wall space, and be sure to cover the wall under and behind your kitchen sink. When the paint dries, you can move the appliances back into the kitchen or install new ones.