Walls and Ceilings - Water damage

My son decided to cover the shower drain with a washcloth since "that'd be cool". :wall:

The water leaked over the shower pan onto the floor, into our bedroom, through the floor, the ceiling downstairs, and into the basement via a wall I guess.

The ceiling in the first floor was damaged. I put a knife into the ceiling and several cups of water poured out.

Until I can call the insurance company, is there anything I can do to prevent further damage? How much repair work am I looking at? Do they have to tear open the walls or the floors?

Thanks in advance!

Get it dried out as quickly as you can.

And I am sure you have taken steps to prevent recurrence? But that is handled in a different forum. Depending on the extend of damage, some sheetrock work will have to be done, I am sure. But let them deal with that. Once you stopped the water flow, you have mitigated as much as possible. Doing too much may hinder a good repair job.

My son decided to cover the shower drain with a washcloth since "that'd be cool". :wall:

The water leaked over the shower pan onto the floor, into our bedroom, through the floor, the ceiling downstairs, and into the basement via a wall I guess.

The ceiling in the first floor was damaged. I put a knife into the ceiling and several cups of water poured out.

Until I can call the insurance company, is there anything I can do to prevent further damage? How much repair work am I looking at? Do they have to tear open the walls or the floors?

Thanks in advance!

If you can afford it out of pocket get a drying/water restoration team out. If you cant afford it get some fans going the faster you get it dry the less chance you have for mold growth.

How is it drying by the way do any areas seems still saturated? What is the composition of the first floor ceiling?

read a little bit here for some non-hyped mold and water damage information:

http://www.epa.gov/mold/moldresources.html
http://www.cdc.gov/mold/faqs.htm
http://www.hawaiiredcross.org/ (guide to flooded homes on page)

Topreventfurther damage you need to take away all the wash cloth's from your son, LOL !!!! Now since it seems water traveled across the inside of the floor/ceiling the one thing to do until it is repaired would be to open up the ceiling large enough to get a small fan in between the ceiling and the upstairs to get the majority of the drywall dried out until further repair. You shouldn't have to repair any of the drywall on your walls provided you never had this happen before and there is no evidence of water seaping down there for any lenght of time which should that be the case then there maybe a need to open the walls up and investigate for mold growth. but since this is a isolated incident you shouldn't have to much to worry about except if you don't get things dried out.