Need help with leak in wall - near washer and under home

[atheria]

I have a lot of water coming out of the bottom of my 1990 Redman. Since I've never lived in a manufactured home, I didn't know what to look for when we bought this home. Yes, I paid for a very expensive but practically worthless inspection. I say worthless because they had a disclaimer in fine print that stated that I "accept" the assessment as good when I sign the inspection report. I didn't go under the home and now I know I probably should have even with the spiders and other assorted bugs.

The leak is:

Under the home near the access door to the crawlspace.
The insulation was bowing towards the ground and a steady
leak of several drips was active while my washer was running.

It is also in on my closet floor which is very much
directly behind/near the washer. There was a musty
smell before I noticed the mildew smell. I am highly
allergic to mildew and molds - so I noticed it but
didn't really know where it was coming from until
a small quarter sized puddle of water formed in the closet.

The wallboard/access panel is filled with mold. It seems
that it has leaked before and never dried out. The access
panel and the wall was almost soaked with water,
yet there is no evidence of "spurting" water. It's seeping
from somewhere and I can't tell from where. It
doesn't SEEM to be coming from the "IN" pipes.

I've checked the shower and toilet on the same side
of the house and it does NOT seem that the leak has
anything to do with them. When I ran the shower the
leak did not start again. We ran the washer and sink
in the kitchen last night and the leak started again..

I have done the following:

1. Removed the access panel to dry out the space

2. Disconnected the washer

3. Started a fan in the closet to dry it out

4. Started looking for manufactured home repair personnel,
but that's NOT easy and I don't know
who to trust and how much this "should" cost.

We JUST bought the home and were NOT told about
any leaking except the water heater which was replaced
some time ago with a very nice 50 gal.. The space IN
the water heater area is completely dry. No other water
is being seen (so far) except in the wall, under the home,
and in the closet.

I live around Auburn, Federal Way, Washington state. If
anyone has any good ideas or knows HOW to find someone who
can logically and reasonably help us to fix this problem,
please post as soon as possible.

If there are any other forums or websites for manufactured
home repairs that you know about, please
also post them.

I appreciate any help you can offer.

Thank you,
atheria

[Mark Bower]

At that age of home, you probably have the gray poly pipe. And you may even have the very problematic plastic fittings. If this wasn't noted in the inspection, you definitely received a raw deal.

Most likely you have a plastic fitting that's cracked. It could be in the wall, but most likely it's underneath the floor, up in the underbelly. It requires special tools to do the repair.

Most likely to do the repair, you'll have to open up the underbelly. Once the repair is done, you'll need to dry things out then repair the underbelly. Tell the repairman that if there's more than one plastic fitting in that area, to replace them all or you may just be doing it all over again. Also tell the repairman that you want the underbelly opened up carefully. If he knows what he's doing, he can cut an X which can be fairly easily taped back up with flexmend belly repair tape.

Mark

[atheria]

Thanks Mark,

And thank you for answering my other inquiry!

This is a raw deal since I am SURE that the people
who sold us the home had to know there was water
under there since they taped the barrier after
we saw the home the first time - it was hanging
down in that area and now it's dripping every
time we do a load of wash... this sucks...

It's bad enough to have to come up with a down
payment for a home and even worse to find that
the home needs a major repair days after one
moves in.

~atheria