Shower and Tub Overflow in Hurst, TX

A tub holds many times more water than a toilet tank, so a tub overflow moves a lot of water at once. In Hurst, where most homes are single-story houses on slab foundations, that volume spreads outward instead of down. It runs under the bathroom door, across the hall and into bedroom carpet, and in many floor plans the primary bath opens straight into a carpeted bedroom or walk-in closet. In apartment buildings near Airport Freeway and Loop 820, an upstairs tub overflow drops through the floor and appears in the ceiling of the unit below, often at a light fixture or ceiling fan.

In the first hour, most of the water can still be pulled out of tile, carpet and pad. By 24 hours, the pad is soaked through, the tack strip is wet, and drywall around the bathroom and closet has wicked water several inches up. By 48 hours, clean tub water begins to degrade toward category 2, and mold can start on damp drywall paper and the back of baseboards. After a week, carpet can delaminate, laminate in the hall cups at the seams, and much more has to be removed than an early start would have required.

Because tub and shower water starts clean, more can usually be saved than after a toilet overflow. Bedroom and hallway carpet can often be dried in place by extracting it hard, pulling it off the tack strip at one edge and floating it with air movers, as long as the work begins within the first day or two. Tile on a Hurst slab dries once the grout and the concrete under it are dried. Drywall that wicked only a few inches is usually dried by directing air at the base of the wall, sometimes after the baseboard is removed to open a gap.

Some materials still have to come out. Carpet pad that stayed wet for more than a day or two is usually replaced, because it is inexpensive compared with the odor and mold risk. Laminate that swelled at the seams rarely lies flat again, and particleboard closet shelving or vanity bases that soaked up water are usually replaced. In stacked apartments, ceiling drywall below that sagged or softened is cut out so the framing and any insulation above it can dry. If the water sat long enough to become category 2, more porous material goes.

Tub and shower overflows happen all over Hurst, and the floor plan decides how far the water travels. In older ranch homes in neighborhoods such as Walker Oaks Addition off Harris Ave and Simpson Park Addition near Harrison Ln, the hall bath often sits between two bedrooms with carpet on both sides. In homes with a remodeled primary bath, such as some in Versailles Parc along Chateaux Ln, a garden tub may open right into a carpeted bedroom and walk-in closet. Apartment complexes near the North East Mall area and the freeways add stacked units, where one overflow wets two homes.

Nearby served towns call with the same problem. Euless has many apartment communities, so upstairs tub overflows into the unit below are a common call there. Bedford has many homes from the 1980s, where original tub drains and overflow gaskets are aging, and Richland Hills has compact 1950s homes where the only bathroom often sits beside the bedrooms. One call connects you with a local restoration pro who comes out, extracts the water and sets up drying.