Flooded Basement

[TMJ]

Our hot water tank just went......partially flooded our basement suite. The tenant is due home in a few hours.....hubby is down there with plumber now:(

[Brewman]

Bummer.  

We you home when it went?  

Years ago my wife and I stopped by her parents house.
They were on vacation somewhere in Asia at the time, and were not scheduled to return for another week or so.  While we were there the water heater tank gave way.  Good thing we were there to turn off the water- if we wouldn't have been there the water could have kept running for days and nobody would have known.  

Hope all goes well for your cleanup.  

[wmccall]

Same thing happened to us, except my mother was visiting. Normally nobody would have been home in the morning. We got away with a few damaged boxes and a wet carpet.

[Brewman]

Makes you wonder why there isn't some kind of fail safe to have water shut off in the event something like this happens.  Experiencing what we did with my in-laws water heater failure, I'd pay some money for such a device.  

The tank actually blew- we heard the noise from another floor, and then water just gushed out till I shut off the inlet valve.  They were lucky that most of it was contained by the floor drain.  

[TMJ]

I went down at 11 am, all was fine. My son went downstairs about 5 pm and water was everywhere. I was home all day, and did not hear a thing. It looks like just wet carpet, and some papers. Keeps your fingers crossed it did not make it to the drywall. All looks good so far...

[tony]

Same thing happened to me about a month ago.  The main shut off valve before the meter blew right off.  It happened at about one o'clock in the morning.  Good thing I awoke when it happened because it made a very faint noise.  Went to the bottom of the stairs and stepped into water.  Went to shut the water off at the meter and no more shut off...just water pouring out of a water service at about 60 plus psi.  Had to call the water dept.  Of course, they didn't get there for about an hour, then couldn't find the shut off in the yard, so they had to shut the whole street down.  No problem...its now after three AM.  All dry now and waiting for insurance.  BTW, it is a completely finished basement.