We've joined the basement flood club :(
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Hang in there. Glad you got it under control. I went thru similar last year. A PEX line along perimeter of concrete slab developed a "nick" over time (5.1 quake exacerbated) and didn't detect for awhile until wall was soaked. The only way to mitigate was chisel out treated basplate. I was extremely lucky enough to have the exact amount protruding from foundation that I could install a Sharkbite coupler. After a week of drying, I applied 2 layers of Kilz and added some lye for good measure.Don't take experimental gene therapies from known eugenicists.
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Set some traps last night at the top and bottom of the wall (i.e., attic & basement).
Woke this morning to find one mouse that had been transformed to, shall we say, an erstwhile mouse.
Now, that may not have been the smoking gun -- but at least it's a start!
There is still a very slow drip (1/2 inch of water in a 5 gal bucket overnight) but places I can see are dried out and the plumber'll be back next week. I feel like we're stable for now.
Actually not too worried about mold per se. Worst case, I think, would be one 16 inch "cell" (section of wall between two studs) full of soaked insulation. We shall see.
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While this wouldnt help with radiant heating applications -
I have been using a Flo by Moen device for over a year and within a couple hours it detects, notifies, and will shut off water if it detects a drip in a faucet. If it detects higher than normal GPM (burst pipe) or any abnormal water usage it notifies you within minutes of the event starting. I cant recommend this device enough for protecting your home from water leaks (plus it monitors water usage and such)- Not Tom ::::::: Any system can play Diana Krall. Only the best can play Limp Bizkit. -
Good idea on the detector. I always shut my water off whenever I'm out of town for a few days. Girlfriend had a neighbor who came home to an $800 water bill when he was gone for a month. He had a mess when a pipe broke.
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Absolutely, the device allows you to shut off your water anywhere in the world with the touch of a button on your phone (on top of the monitoring for leaks and monitoring water usage) + it lets you compare your actual water usage to your utilities company claim to what you used- Not Tom ::::::: Any system can play Diana Krall. Only the best can play Limp Bizkit.
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heh -- not my phone.
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Glad to hear you have the leak under control; but still what an unnecessary pita. One of my winter projects was to tear out all my aging copper pipes and shut offs and replace them with sharkbite fittings and pex. After reading about your catastrophe I'm putting that project on hold.
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Plumbing leaks aren't fun, sorry to hear about this.
We had small one on the hot water pipe in our foundation that ran under the floor in our MBR closet. The only reason we discovered it was the floor tile in the closet was warm when we walked on it.Yamaha RX-A2070, Musical Fidelity M6si integrated amp, Benchmark Dac1, Bluesound NODE 2i, Audiolab 6000CDT CD Transport, Parasound Zphono USB Phono Preamp, Fluance RT85, Ortofon 2M Bronze, Polk L600's, L400, L900's, RC80i's, SVS 3000 Micro, Audioquest Interconnects and Digital Cables, Nordost Silver Shadow Digital Cable, Cullen Gold and Crossover Series Power Cables, Douglas Connection Alpha 12AWG OCC Speaker Cables, Douglas Connection Alpha Analog Interconnect Cables, Douglas Connection Alpha 11 OCC Custom Power Cable, Signal Power Cable, Furman PL-8C 15 Power Conditioner, Sony 65" 900F, Sony UBP-X700, Fios, Apple TV 4K, Audioquest Chocolate HDMI Cables. -
I have joined the club!!!! Wooo-heeee! Been up since 5 cleaning up water in basement and vacuuming out carpet a hundred times. GD blue plastic water line coming into the basement sprung a leak. Freezing or no freezing....this stuff should be banned. I know numerous people down here who have had issues with this sh#t pipe. Plumber coming tomorrow....stay tuned!
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PEX? Or is that main cold water coming into house? If they use Plastic main here it's thick black cold water pipe.
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Its the main water line coming into the house but its not pex. Its pretty flexible and inexpensive, which is great for builders and sh#t for homeowners.PEX? Or is that main cold water coming into house? If they use Plastic main here it's thick black cold water pipe.
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I have joined the club!!!! Wooo-heeee! Been up since 5 cleaning up water in basement and vacuuming out carpet a hundred times. GD blue plastic water line coming into the basement sprung a leak. Freezing or no freezing....this stuff should be banned. I know numerous people down here who have had issues with this sh#t pipe. Plumber coming tomorrow....stay tuned!
Sorry to hear. Needless to say, I'm empathetic.
Hoping our plumber will get by tomorrow, too.
Things are mostly dried out -- still a very, very slow drip downstairs... which I am hoping will aid diagnosis.
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mhardy6647 wrote: »I have joined the club!!!! Wooo-heeee! Been up since 5 cleaning up water in basement and vacuuming out carpet a hundred times. GD blue plastic water line coming into the basement sprung a leak. Freezing or no freezing....this stuff should be banned. I know numerous people down here who have had issues with this sh#t pipe. Plumber coming tomorrow....stay tuned! Sorry to hear. Needless to say, I'm empathetic.
Hoping our plumber will get by tomorrow, too.
Things are mostly dried out -- still a very, very slow drip downstairs... which I am hoping will aid diagnosis.
Good luck....hopefully you still have use of the water in the meantime. We had to result to "hillbilly showers" as my kids called them. Dad runs out to the street with pliers, calls child on cell to get in shower, then turn on water at the street. Repeat process to turn off shower and for multiple showers. Makes you realize how good life really is.... -
The area where the supply line comes into the house is getting 2 of these....Ill happily add another removable panel in the wall to add these. 12 bucks you cant go wrong... -
mhardy6647 wrote: »I have joined the club!!!! Wooo-heeee! Been up since 5 cleaning up water in basement and vacuuming out carpet a hundred times. GD blue plastic water line coming into the basement sprung a leak. Freezing or no freezing....this stuff should be banned. I know numerous people down here who have had issues with this sh#t pipe. Plumber coming tomorrow....stay tuned! Sorry to hear. Needless to say, I'm empathetic.
Hoping our plumber will get by tomorrow, too.
Things are mostly dried out -- still a very, very slow drip downstairs... which I am hoping will aid diagnosis.
Good luck....hopefully you still have use of the water in the meantime. We had to result to "hillbilly showers" as my kids called them. Dad runs out to the street with pliers, calls child on cell to get in shower, then turn on water at the street. Repeat process to turn off shower and for multiple showers. Makes you realize how good life really is....
Yeah, it's jarring to suddenly find oneself living under Third World developing world conditions!
Hope you remember to turn on the water before you're getting undressed for the shower!
We are exceptionally lucky with the construction of this house. Right now, we have all of the valves closed on the heating zones, but the domestic hot water circuit is still operating.
All of our hot and cold water lines have individual shutoffs on two manifolds in the basement. When we discovered the leak, I shut 'em all off (EDIT: all of 'em that go to the second floor, that is). After the leak was markedly slowed, I have turned lines back on, piecemeal, to see if any of the domestic water lines could (also?) be involved. At the moment, everything to our bathroom is turned back on (except the tub hot and cold supplies -- since we never use the tub!). All of the supply lines to the "guest bathroom" are still off -- except the terlit (because, well, you know... you can't have too many terlits on-line!).
EDIT^2: I realize this wouldn't help in your case, though, since the issue's where the line comes in to the house
Here's a photo of Ground Zero I just sent this to the plumba as a gentle 'ping', since I think he's back from Wyoming as of yesterday. 
EDIT: The mousetrap is partly visible to the right side of the beam. There have been no further executions - for better or for worse - since the initial one the night of the event
Hope your situations works out well, and quickly!
Post edited by mhardy6647 on -
How did you get Ray Charles to do all that wiring for you and keep it all in one spot?!?Where’s the KABOOM?!?! There’s supposed to be an Earth shattering KABOOM!!!
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Many years ago I had mice chew the plastic parts out of the bottom of a dishwasher, including the hose that let water out of the machine. I only noticed it because I turned the dishwasher on one day and heard water cascading downstairs when the dishwasher reached its rinse cycle. Mice gnaw on whatever is available and they follow wiring and pipes through a building, but they also need water. They'll get at water however they can including chewing up plastic pipes.
It's also possible, I suppose, that the radiant heating PEX pipes got worn over time by foot traffic on the floor above. Unlikely, but possible. -
How did you get Ray Charles to do all that wiring for you and keep it all in one spot?!?
I am sure it was the color-coding.
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I'm glad i re-plumbed with heavy grade copper a few years back.
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I like the way this is laid out. I'm not a plumber.
My uncle was a union plumber for 44 years (all commercial big new building jobs).
He retired in the late1980's, he passed about 12 years ago.
He commented to me several times how he hated seeing these new plastic pipes. Even though he never used any of it. He was just old, old school. He worked with lead, galvanized and copper. He was tough, working with galvanized, cutting and threading it.
Steam fitting and plumbing is hard work.
Being union, he was well paid WHEN work was plentiful. Which lasted until around 1981 when things slowed way down. I remember a younger union plumber with less seniority and a young family having to leave Nebr. in 1981 to work as a plumber on a job in NH (just a coincidence) for a few months to make ends meet.
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Our house in MA had all copper plumbing -- but it was built in the early 1970s, when copper had gotten expensive, so it was all thin-walled pipe (I guess the stuff used for heating).
Years of hard water, wear and tear were exacerbated when we moved in (1991) and added a water softener & pH neutralizer. We got pinhole leaks everywhere, piecemeal. Ended up replacing a lot of plumbing in that house, over the years.
That house also had aluminum wiring
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I have seen several homes with aluminum wiring. In fact a friend that is an Elec. Engineer whose home was built in 1971 had aluminum wiring. He lived in it for close to 25 years before selling it. He said he just made sure all the connections were tight. He really didn't fear it. I would though!
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aprazer402 wrote: »I have seen several homes with aluminum wiring. In fact a friend that is an Elec. Engineer whose home was built in 1971 had aluminum wiring. He lived in it for close to 25 years before selling it. He said he just made sure all the connections were tight. He really didn't fear it. I would though!
Yup, it's not a disaster per se-- even though it could be. Whenever we had "to the studs" remodeling done, we had the wiring replaced. That's why I call the MA house "House 3.2" -- it went through two fairly major renos. Our electrician also installed copper pigtails (for lack of a better word) in all the switch and outlet boxes, and at the fixtures. There's a code-accepted "repair" (or at least there was, in the 1990s) that involved (IIRC) a crimped connection and sort of oxidation-resistant sealant.
House 3.2
(I'll have to dig out a photo of ver 3.0 sometime...)
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Nice! Very traditional two story colonial (sans attic dormers). Your new home has a similar style. I see a chimney on the garage roof, is there a fireplace in the breezeway? I see skylights in that area too. The pig tails are known as AlumiConn connectors.
The back side, more skylights! and a little family room addition? -
aprazer402 wrote: »Nice! Very traditional two story colonial (sans attic dormers). Your new home has a similar style. I see a chimney on the garage roof, is there a fireplace in the breezeway? I see skylights in that area too. The pig tails are known as AlumiConn connectors.
Yeah -- now that you mention it... AlumiConn.
Mrs. H likes colonials, and - when push comes to shove - so do I.
We designed House 4.0 to resemble 3.2 -- but the floor plan is completely different. It's also a little smaller, which is a mixed blessing.
3.2 had a big family room between garage & main house, which was quite nice. As purchased, the room was paneled with knotty pine stained dark, dark brown. Opressively dark.
3.2 also had what had been a 3 season porch on the back which had been enlarged and enclosed (albeit ham-fistedly) by the previous (original) owner into a game room of sorts. We had both of those rooms gutted and redone (3.1)
DSC_7739 by Mark Hardy, on Flickr
DSC_7639 by Mark Hardy, on Flickr
These photos are from move-out day, July 2013
OK -- the mauve was fairly fashionable when we put it in!
3.2 needed the skylights (it had 5 when we got it, we added one to each bathroom when the latter were redone in the mid-90s: 3.2) -- it was, as you can see, nestled in the trees.
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Your first front photo has a tree right where I was thinking a door should be going into the family room that I had pegged as a breezeway between house and garage. Did the entire house have hot water baseboard heating or is it electric heat hard to tell? I see it in all your interior room photos. Looks like it was a very nice home for you.
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aprazer402 wrote: »I have seen several homes with aluminum wiring. In fact a friend that is an Elec. Engineer whose home was built in 1971 had aluminum wiring. He lived in it for close to 25 years before selling it. He said he just made sure all the connections were tight. He really didn't fear it. I would though!
The problem with the aluminum branch circuit wiring done in 1970,'s was a common problem called cold creep, the aluminum would heat up differently than the fasteners and when it cooled down you would have a loose connection. Most new houses nowadays use aluminum wire for the service feed and there isn't a problem with it as long as it's tighten to spec. -
aprazer402 wrote: »Your first front photo has a tree right where I was thinking a door should be going into the family room that I had pegged as a breezeway between house and garage. Did the entire house have hot water baseboard heating or is it electric heat hard to tell? I see it in all your interior room photos. Looks like it was a very nice home for you.
All baseboard.
The back room had an electric baseboard
when we bought it. When we redid it, we added a zone of hot water baseboard heat.
No exterior door to the family room. There was a slider to the deck off the erstwhile porch. The FR had a door into the garage to give, ultimately, access to the outside world.
