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Feb 14, 2025 | Jarod Meyer, Content Manager
Imagine waking up to a kitchen flooded with water, a ruined basement, and potentially thousands of dollars in repairs – all just because of a single faulty faucet. It’s a nightmare scenario, but one that happens to homeowners more often than you’d think. At Mattioni Plumbing, Heating, & Cooling, we’ve seen it, so we know how critical choosing quality plumbing materials is. In this Q&A-style article, we’ll share a firsthand experience from one of our own – what went wrong, what could have been done differently, and how you can protect your home from a similar disaster.
Jump To a Section:
- Meet Dan Lizette
- The Home Flooding Disaster: What Happened
- The Cost of Cheap Plumbing Parts
- The Cleanup
- How to Avoid this Disaster
- How Name Brands Swap Parts to Compete at a Lower Price Point
- Most Major Household Emergencies are Avoidable
Meet Dan Lizette
If you’ve dialed Mattioni in the past, there’s a chance you may have already spoken to him. Yet as a homeowner, he’s faced with the same decisions and challenges as anyone else. Now the Director of Process Improvement here at Mattioni, Dan’s story serves as a lesson to all of us. I sat down with Dan, and we talked about some of the harsh consequences of the decisions any homeowner must make.
Jarod
I’m here with Dan Lizette. How are you doing, Dan?
Dan
I’m good, Jarod. How are you?
Jarod
Thank you for taking the time to share something that’s not exactly a happy story. But before we get into that, can you just tell us a little bit about yourself?
Dan
Sure. Let’s see, I’ve been here since April of 2021, and I am currently the Director of Process Improvement. I used to be the Call Center Manager here at Mattioni, and I transitioned just at the start of this year into the new role. I’ve lived in Downingtown for the last 12 years, and I’ve been in my current house for about a year and a half. I’m from Virginia Beach, in the Chesapeake area – Hampton Roads, Virginia.
I have a background in advertising research. I spent some time with the U.S. government and the Census Bureau. And I’ve also been a mobile DJ for 25-plus years at this point.
Jarod
Seems like you have a well-rounded background, professionally and personally.
Dan
Indeed. I’ve been busy.
The Home Flooding Disaster: What Happened
J
Why don’t we go back to that day in June of last year now. Can you walk us through what that morning was like? Was it morning?
D
It was the morning of June 5th, 2024, if my memory serves. And actually, I think the story starts probably about two years prior – this all hinged on a decision I made back in early 2022. During that year, Mattioni was in the process of converting our showroom into a training room. In the showroom, there were a lot of kitchen and bath accessories.
When we decided to convert it into a training space and call center, our owner graciously offered to give a lot of the components that were in there to our staff. Basically, you were able to come in, put your name on it, and if you were the only person who put their name on it, you got it. If multiple people put a name on it, you’d have a little drawing, and somebody would win that component. I wanted one of the lav faucets, because I wanted to replace my master bath faucet. So, I won that through that process.
After that was all done, I was looking to get a plumber out to replace the lav faucet, but in my head, I said, well, that’s a small job. That’s not going to take them long. I’ve donated my home on many occasions to our plumbing trainer and his trainees while they learn how to do some basic functions. And I said, if I’m going to have them out, I want them to do more than just a lav faucet.
So, at this particular moment in time, I was a little strapped for cash, and I decided that I was going to find my own kitchen faucet. I went on Amazon and was familiar with some of the brands that we use here. Delta is one of those brands, so I purchased a Delta faucet off Amazon. When the plumbers came out to my house, they replaced that lav faucet as well as the Delta faucet I bought myself on Amazon in my kitchen.
So that’s where this story starts in 2022. Fast forward to 2024, the date in question in June of 2024.
J
What went wrong in June 2024?
D
I believe it was a Tuesday evening, and everything was fine when my girlfriend brought a load of laundry downstairs at about eight o’clock. My dogs get up very early – about five in the morning – so that tends to be the time when I get up. I got up with the dogs at 5am the next morning, walked into my kitchen, and there is a lake surrounding the kitchen sink.
At first, I wasn’t sure what it was. My house does have a brief history of a small roof leak, but I wasn’t sure if something got spilled the night before. I thought maybe a pitcher of water, or somebody had kicked the dogs’ water bowl or something. I didn’t think much of it.
As I got closer, I started to grab a paper towel, and I realized it was everywhere – probably a third of my kitchen floor was covered in water. At which point I looked underneath the sink and there was water there. I went downstairs, there was water beneath the sink, and the crisis was on.
J
At the risk of this being at the heart of the trauma aspect of this, can we go back to that moment where you thought it might’ve been, oh, the dog bowl got kicked over? In those first few seconds, what were the first things to go through your head as you get closer, and you realize it was a little bit more water?
D
For me, it was about trying to figure out what it was. I had no idea where it could be coming from. I ultimately opened the cabinet underneath the sink, and I saw active water rolling down the water lines coming underneath the faucet. At this point, I realized that I had a significantly larger issue.
At that moment in time, unfortunately, I had to wake my girlfriend up because, at this point, I now knew I was going to need some help. First and foremost, the dogs needed to be fed, because they were not going to wait for this flood situation. And then the cleanup had to commence.
J
With all of this going on in your head, what were the first decisive actions you took?
D
I had to shut the water off, which is one of the things that we do here with our VIP members. If you have an annual plumbing inspection, one of the things that’s done at every home every time is that our technicians will tag your main water shut off valve. When that got done a few years prior, I remember commenting, “I’m glad you guys tagged it, because I had no idea where it was.”
Well, this day, luckily I knew where it was. What a lot of people may or may not realize is that when you turn on the water at your shower head, at your kitchen faucet, or wherever, that water is in the lines waiting for you. When you turn it on, that’s how water immediately comes on. The line is full of water the whole time, and once you turn it off again, that line fills back up with water.
Well, what had happened in this particular failure was the kitchen faucet had failed. And the water lines leading to the kitchen faucet had failed. So the faucet had failed, and the rubber tubing underneath running up into one of the faucets had a crack in it. As this water system was pushing water into the crack, the water was just flowing out. And the water kept coming because it never got full – it just kept coming through the crack.
And I mentioned earlier that at 8 p.m. the night before, my girlfriend had gone downstairs with a load of laundry. She noticed nothing wrong. So it was completely dry at 8 p.m. the night before. But by 5 a.m. sometime during that time window, this water line that connected to this faucet had developed a crack, and water was being pushed actively for hours and falling out of this cracked water line underneath the faucet.
The Cost of Cheap Plumbing Parts
J
So the root of the issue is this plastic piece, is it rubber? Plastic?
D
I believe it was rubber.
J
When we’re trying to understand exactly what happened, it was a crack that was either beginning to form at some point before that night and had got to the point where it finally reached a size that water could seep through; or it just cracked all at once. It sounds like we don’t know exactly which took place, but, like you were saying, when the water comes back to the faucet to be ready to go, it never reaches the pressure point of telling itself to stop.
D
Correct. So, it just kept coming. Water just kept coming the whole time.
J
And this is all happening under your sink?
D
Under the sink in my kitchen, and then eventually it fell out of the cabinet, through the sides of the cabinet, onto the kitchen floor, beneath the cabinet, through the basement ceiling. In the room underneath, a finished basement, water started to pour onto a pool table, onto the carpet, onto lighting fixtures, and, you know, I will never know exactly how long that ran. It was between five minutes and approaching nine hours.
I think it was probably closer to the longer time based on how much water was seen down there, but it was probably six, seven, eight hours of water just running in this fashion.
J
I’m going to ask a question that may give you a chance to be fully cathartic about it: did you ever think this could happen to you?
D
Absolutely not. Nobody does. This is my advocacy tale for homeowners insurance, for one. This is why one has homeowners insurance. This had never happened to me. This is my second home. I’ve been a homeowner since 2009. I’ve never had this happen. I’ve heard stories about things like this, and I think everybody has had some type of experience with water in the past. I’ve had my sump pump stop pumping due to a power outage, and some water built up during a heavy rainstorm. So I had some experience with water in a place you don’t want it; but had never seen anything like this. It was so silent and unobservable at one moment and then just so destructive the next.
J
I almost want to say thank God for the dogs, right?
D
Yeah. Had they decided to sleep in a little bit longer it probably would have been worse. It’s hard to say.
J
So it’s coming through the floor, then the ceiling of the basement, and onto the pool table…
D
Carpet, lighting fixtures. Yeah, it was rough.
J
I want to get back to the root cause. You mentioned that this was not the part from the showroom at Mattioni.
D
Correct. This was a part ordered on Amazon.
J
And it was installed by Mattioni plumbers?
D
Correct. Our team did install it, yes.
J
Was it installed properly to your knowledge? This issue was not anything coming from the installation, right?
D
Correct. Ultimately, in the end, it was deemed some form of manufacturing defect in the item I purchased off Amazon. It was not installed wrong. It was installed and functioned normally for two-plus years. But over time, it was the degradation of the rubber water line inside the hose.
The Cleanup
J
Before we get to more of the cautionary things, let’s talk about the whole process of what’s happened. It’s affecting you personally, it’s a huge amount of stress, it’s taking all your time, but it’s also your home and the cost element of cleaning it up must’ve been unimaginable. Can you just take us through a little bit of that process?
D
Yeah, the fallout and the time afterward was extraordinary. I actually had our plumbing trainer come by that morning to look at it, and he’s the one who identified the failure in the component. Then I showed him the water that had flowed down to our lower level onto the pool table and the damage to the drywall in the ceiling already and he was the first one who said, you’re going to need a remediation company – this was not going to dry on its own with a couple of box fans.
We had a recommendation for a remediation company; I had them out there a couple of hours later, at which point they basically started taking everything apart. I was on the phone with my homeowner’s insurance and they got down there and they started cutting out drywall, they started ripping out carpet, they started bringing in monster-sized dehumidifiers, jet-sounding powered fans that were set up on the main living room floor by the kitchen where the leak originated, and of course downstairs where the pool table was completely destroyed and needed to be taken apart and removed eventually.
All the carpet was ripped out and all the drywall was cut out through two-thirds of my basement. This condition, this drying out condition, took almost a month of drying equipment in there. My homeowner’s insurance was being billed for essentially what is a rental of all this equipment. My whole downstairs was tented – they hung floor-to-ceiling plastic sealed with tape and zippers to create what looked like the room E.T. was in during the movie, so that they could intensely dry and trap the humidity in one spot to get rid of as much of it as possible. All of that was fine. The real obstruction to us was they had multiple large fans in the main living room.
I live in an open-concept living room, dining room, kitchen. It’s all wide open in one space, and these jet engine drying fans had to be there for weeks, and it was horrible. You just sat in your own living room, and you’d get a headache after 10 minutes because of the sound. You couldn’t even have a conversation with the person you were sitting right next to on a couch. Luckily this was summer, and we took to basically eating many of our meals outside because you couldn’t even hear anything. It was a terrible inconvenience in terms of the damage, the remediation, the drying out – and that was before any repairs even began.
J
Yeah, my head goes to eating at restaurants more often. Maybe I want to go to the library more than I did before.
D
Yeah, silence, yes.
J
But you mentioned the homeowner’s insurance helped with this. Is that something that you always had just in case? Has it ever helped you at other times?
D
Yeah, I’ve never had to use my homeowner’s insurance before. It is definitely something I strongly recommend everyone to have. Not a home warranty company. Those tend to be sometimes very difficult. They tend to find ways to get out of things. Those are, kind of like, cost-to-repair and affordability options. I’m talking about homeowner’s insurance or renter’s insurance. Where you’re insuring your possessions inside the home against damage.
I had State Farm as my homeowner’s insurance. The experience with them was perfect. They were very quick and responsive in making sure that everything was done in a timely fashion. There were a few, procedure stuff that was a little annoying to deal with, but on the whole, homeowner’s is definitely something that I would recommend for sure.
How To Avoid This Disaster
J
Now I’m curious about looking back at the experience today – in hindsight, is there anything that could have prevented this outside of just having a higher quality part in that spot? Were there any systems you could have used that would have either stopped it from happening entirely or caught it early and minimized it?
D
Yes. I took the new faucet that was going to be installed and put it up against the one that had just failed (and was the source of this issue), and when you looked at these two products next to each other, you could just see the difference in the quality of the components – one versus the other.
It’s something that I’ve heard during my years here and has been a consistent drumbeat, especially from our technical staff (who always relays the information to customers): don’t undervalue the quality of the product that’s installed. It’s either builder grade or commercial grade. Ask yourself, “Is this a higher-grade quality product or a lower-grade quality?”
Oftentimes, as a former call center manager, there would be concerns that customers would raise to us, like “I could get this at Home Depot for cheaper,” and we constantly try to explain to folks about the higher quality items that we have available to us. Well, here, on the day of my flood, in my own kitchen, on a side-by-side comparison, I had what my consumer choice was when I tried to save a few dollars from Amazon on one side compared to what we install on the other side.
This was night and day. I was looking at a very small, thin, rubber water line from the one that had been removed – the Delta I bought on Amazon. That was next to the Moen Branford that I was about to have installed, which was metal, braided metal, on the water line. It was significantly thicker, it was significantly tougher; you couldn’t bend it, and it was clearly a more durable product than what had just come out of my kitchen.
As you compared them it almost looked like something you’d find in a high-end shopping boutique versus a discount department store – the difference was extraordinarily clear. I truly feel like if I had not tried to cheap out two years before by buying something myself, and just gone with what we provide, then these problems could have been avoided.
Just to be clear, it’s been explained to me many times by some of our technical staff that major brands will often compete with the no-name products you’ll see on a place like Amazon at a different price point than their flagship products. They do swap components and change out more durable, long-lasting, expensive internal components for less durable, more inexpensive, cost-reducing pieces so that they can compete against the no-name brands that the big box stores or Amazon would sell.
That’s why you can find seemingly good products made by name brands in such-and-such store or online – it’s because of that practice so that they can compete on price with those other ones. But what you’re getting is nothing like a professional plumber can bring to your home straight from a supply house.
J
It sounds like there is that superior option that costs a little bit more in the short term. But it gives you better performance over the long run and has a much lower risk of failure
D
Yep.
How Name Brands Swap Parts to Compete at a Lower Price Point
J
What was interesting that you just said, though, is that some of these competitors will replace some parts. They’ll replace internal components with cheaper, knockoff stuff. So you end up with a less durable, more plastic, piece of equipment – even though it’s name brand.
D
Plastic versus metal, yep.
J
That sounds like something that people should be more aware of than maybe they are.
D
Yeah.
J
So, what are some red flags? Can you just speak a little bit about the warning signs that an ultra DIYer can look out for? And also, why might it be worth going through a professional plumbing company that has suppliers with reliable equipment?
D
Right. I think one is just understanding that it would be a side-by-side comparison. If a DIYer has the ability to compare something they found at a lower price versus something a professional plumber could provide, I think would be one good option. If an ultimate DIYer is reading this and they’re like, well, I found this deal on Amazon and I’m going to buy that. Okay – Amazon’s got a 30-day return window. During that 30 days, have our plumbers come out and have them show you what we could offer in terms of replacing that faucet, and just hold them up. Like what I saw that day, I’d never seen before because I never thought I’d find myself in a situation where I would want to do something like that.
But if you’re concerned about the type of experience that I had, I think that’s one really easy way. Don’t just buy it, jump on it, put it in, and be like, I’m done. If you really want to take care of your home and make sure that you don’t end up in a situation that you regret two years after you put that thing in, do a side-by-side comparison.
If that’s not feasible or that’s not realistic, just understand that even your name brands will play in the too-good-to-be-true pricing game. Understand that if a large brand is price competing with a no-name imported brand that you’ve never heard of before, and that one’s $47 while the name brand is $79, and you’re like, well, I’m going to go ahead and get the name brand because, you’re already engaging the part of your brain that already realizes that the $47 is too good to be true, but the $79 is also too good to be true.
So, are you getting the too-good-to-be-true from the name brand or are you getting their best stuff? And I think most homeowners want their best stuff. And I will tell you this – I probably did save a couple hundred bucks that first time. I got that part from Amazon, and it was categorically not worth it in any way shape or form, even though homeowner insurance did pick up everything that happened in my home. The inconvenience and the repairs at my home were not done until almost Labor Day.
We talked about the remediation, well that doesn’t even get into carpet installers, painters, the replacement of the pool table, and the personal possessions. It was a nearly three-month process of inconvenience where we lost almost a whole summer of using the space, and it was not worth whatever I saved upfront with the Amazon purchase.
J
Yeah, it speaks for itself. It’s the risk of failure. What you were saying about the too-good-to-be-true pricing – if we want to take that type of mentality and use it in other household situations, how far does that extend? In your experience, what can you speak to as far as how far the too-good-to-be-true principle reaches?
D
I think it’s pretty far-reaching. Specifically, water heaters are one that’s been called out to me before. This is why when you receive an estimate from us, not only does that price include things like installation, removal of the old one, testing (all the other steps that aren’t wound into the price you see at Home Depot or Lowe’s), but it also includes the internal components on that water heater which are very similar to the faucet experience I had. If you could cut one in half and take a side view of the inside of both, and put them side by side, you’d probably see very similar component swapping for cost savings to hit a price point.
Even the big brands know that if they’re going to be set on the showroom floor with less reputable manufacturers who use inferior components to hit a price point, if they want to participate in that they are going to have to do the same or similar. And that’s where these troubles run in.
Most Major Household Emergencies are Avoidable
D
You know, I think the tendency in many large homeownership projects we’re talking about (faucets or water heaters or anything else), I can tell you being a homeowner for 17 years now: owning a home is so expensive that your tendency is to say, “Where can I save money?” And it is human nature to say, “What’s the best deal I can get on something like this?”
The problem is that with something like this, you’re not going to be able to save money without getting an inferior product. I’ve learned over my years that you will, more often than not, pay a heftier price if you choose to go for the upfront bargain.
The expression, ‘You get what you pay for’ exists. It’s real for a reason. And the reasons are stories like this or thousands or hundreds of thousands of other stories others have from very similar experiences.
More often than not, you benefit from the upfront investment, and the savings come many years down the road. Once you make that investment up front, your savings come in year 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 of that water heater when it’s still going. Or it comes 20 years later when you haven’t replaced that faucet at all. Those are the savings – because you didn’t replace it every five years because it kept leaking or causing damage. Things like plumbing especially, but HVAC is true too.
J
I was going to ask if you could give any one piece of advice for homeowners on this subject, but it sounds like that might be it: you get what you pay for.
D
Somebody once said to me, wait as long as you can to replace something, and then when you have to replace it, buy the absolute best thing you possibly can. And if you sort of take those two approaches, well, in the end, you’re probably going to save money.
Because if you buy the nicest water heater you can today, that’s going to carry you for so long. Or if you buy the nicest faucet you can today, that’s going to carry you for so long. You’re going to go past the time of having to make that investment again had you went with something cheaper. You throw in the damage risk, and the equation’s clear.
J
Yeah. There’s one other thing, and I don’t know how much you can speak to this, but leak detection systems.
D
Yep.
J
I know that in many cases they are installed near the water heater. This was at your kitchen sink faucet. Do they work in both situations?
D
Sure. That’s another thing, I now have three throughout my house. There are a ton of different types of leak detection systems, and they’re so cheap. If you want the most basic leak detection, I believe I’ve found three and four packs of these things for about 18 bucks. And the only thing they do is make this screaming audible alarm. It makes a really, really, really loud noise. You can stick them under your sink, by your water heater, in your sump pump, near your sump pump – wherever you want.
Or you can upgrade; the ones I have actually integrate with my smart home and send push notifications to my phone. I have one set next to my water heater, underneath my kitchen sink, and by my sump pump. So even if I’m not home, I would be able to see if water were to ever hit any of those. I’m getting a push notification on my phone whenever that happens.
And there are even more systems, like you mentioned, the ones that can be tied directly to a water heater and automatically shut it off if the water heater itself leaks. We do offer things like that; but there’s also simple solutions. There are smart home solutions, and there are ones associated with different components. Definitely worth an investment in that as well.
J
I’m glad that we were able to touch on that because it seems like a preventative measure that, at the very worst, minimizes any damage.
D
Well, it at least makes you aware.
J
Right. It wakes you up at 11:30 p.m. versus 5 a.m.
D
Yeah, and the leak has been gone for five minutes instead of five hours.
J
Exactly. I want to wrap up and call out something important. If someone’s reading this, and they think, “That’s a horror story, but Dan works for a plumbing company. Of course he’s going to tell us to buy more plumbing systems.” What do you say to that person?
D
I’m not talking to you as an employee. This isn’t an employee telling you this story. This is a homeowner telling this story. It was installed by Mattioni. It was my own customer-supplied part. It’s my experience as a customer, using a customer-supplied part, and it was my experience as a Mattioni customer seeing what we installed versus what I decided to purchase.
This tale is from somebody who owns a home, who plans on staying in that home, who wants to make sure that I don’t run into a situation like this again. To somebody who has a doubt, I would say that I just so happen to work here. But this is coming from a homeowner perspective.
J
Fair enough. Thank you, Dan, for opening up about such a traumatic experience and turning it into something that we can learn from.
D
Yeah, man.
What Did We Learn About home Flooding?
There are a few lessons that each of us can take from Dan’s home flooding story. First and foremost, don’t undervalue the quality of the materials being used in your home’s utility systems. It may sound obvious, but putting cheap parts in your plumbing, heating, or cooling system can have consequences ranging from simple failure and hindered performance, to devastating breakdowns and emergencies like home flooding.
It’s important to understand that many manufacturers will offer a low-quality line of parts and system components to compete with cheaper, imported equipment both online and on shelves in home improvement stores. It’s always a good idea to consult with a professional before installing a part on your own and listen to what they have to say about your options – even if you are not hiring a pro for the installation, speaking with one can make sure you’re on the right path.
Another lesson learned from what Dan went through is to seriously consider installing preventative systems like leak detection systems. Most of us don’t think twice about smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors, and we should treat leak detection systems the same.
Also, securing a quality homeowner’s insurance policy can be the difference between a stressful experience and one that lands you in financial ruin. If you already have homeowner’s insurance, take some time to read through your policy and ensure you’re satisfied with your coverage.
Taking the right steps now can make a world of difference when the unforeseen happens. Call us at (610) 400-8510 to find out more about what you can do to secure your home’s plumbing system today – or book an appointment online.
