rain and water leakage headaches
Oct. 26th, 2009 07:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
indigo_rose99This summer has been dry and unusually hot. So when it started raining about a month ago, we were delighted. However, T and I noticed a new puddle outside our garage door. T insisted that it was leakage from when the garage door opened and closed, but it was a bit too large and stayed around too long.
After a four-day dry spell and several "discussions" about garage door drip vs house leak with T, I called a plumber three weeks ago. The plumber came and walked around the house with me. He showed me that the puddle in front of the garage was only one symptom -- that whole side of the house was leaking. All of the weep holes were oozing water. It went around the corner in the back of the house in a mirror-to-the-front puddle back there. Ack!
He had no time, but said he would come back the next day (Friday) and check for leaks in the most likely place -- the outside spigot. He would rip a hole in the drywall (because it is easy to fix drywall, you know) and fix it right up.
Friday I took off to visit my college roommate, B, and left T to handle the plumber's return visit. That night when I walked the house, the puddle looked the same. There was a hole in the drywall on the inside of the garage and another behind the washer. The refrigerator was showing grunge under the edges. Perhaps moved?
T later explained that the drywall hole in the garage led to nothing. Totally dry. No leak.
So then the plumber pulled out the washer and made a bigger hole. Also dry.
He wanted to pull out the refrigerator and do ANOTHER hole. This is where T ran out of patience. No. No more holes in the drywall. Two will be painful enough to fix.
The plumber suggested that since the water is running the entire length of the house, it is probably running down something, hitting the slab, and spreading out along the entire side of the house. Perhaps after the dry summer, one of the four vent pipes on our (new as of May) roof was not sealed. The water runs down the vent, hits slab, spreads out, runs out the weep holes?
So on Saturday, we called the roofer. They promised to send someone. No one showed. So the next Monday, I called the roofer again. Our roof is guaranteed for 2 years. He promised to send someone. No one showed. Tuesday, another phone call and this time someone showed. T handled it. He said that non-English speakers went on the roof, messed around a bit in ways that stressed him (pulling up tiles?) and left. Did they fix anything? Did they change anything?
The next day we left for Vegas. My neighbor and cat-watcher reported no change in the weeping and puddles.
The next Monday I called the roofer again, "So, what happened? Did you change anything? Are we waiting for a fix to kick in?" I finally got someone who said, "No. They didn't find anything. Still leaking, huh? I'll send someone else." Predictably, no one appeared.
On Wednesday, I suggested that we shut off the water to the house for the day on Thursday. I would be visiting my college roommate and T would be at work. What could it hurt? T argued fiercely against it. He thought it was pointless.
I won the argument, but felt strongly that I was losing the battle of the weeping house.
Thursday night the puddle seemed unchanged. T and I discussed how to solve this, big picture. He suggested a second plumbing opinion. I said, "OK" and made an appointment with a different plumber, this time officially for the purpose of tracking down a mysterious leak.
So Friday afternoon I met Plumber#2. He walked the outside, looked over the hole in the garage drywall and indicated that he agreed with the previous plumber's approach. He strongly believed that it was a pipe problem, not a leaking roof problem. Then he pulled out a meter and attached it to our water softner and started turning the water on and off at different locations. I spent long stretches of minutes staring at a dial waiting for it to twitch. It twitched. Clearly a pipe leak. Another set of different on and off water... And clearly a pipe leak of the inside pipes, not the outside pipes. He said the next step was to narrow it down between cold and hot water. He said it is most likely the piles along the side of the leaking wall. He strongly suspected a slab leak. He gave me a quote ($550+) for how much it would cost for him and another guy to come out on Saturday and systematically track down the leak. He said that when they found it, they would cap off that pipe, and reroute the water using a new line. The quote was only for the search, not the repair.
Ugh.
But before he left, he asked if he could take a look inside the house. "Sure."
He looked over the hole in the drywall behind the washer. "Yep, that is what I would have done." He pulled out the refrigerator and said, "This is the next most likely place for the leak to be. If it is back here, I can fix the leak now. May I put a hole in your drywall?"
Ugh. Another hole & possibly find/fix the leak today vs very expensive testing tomorrow? Ugh. *Bang head on counter* "Yes. Let's test behind the frig."
And that is where we found the hole that the builders put in the pipe ten years ago. It took that long for the tack to rust out and the pipe start leaking. He fixed it in an hour for half the price the search would have cost.
Whew!
Now we wait for the walls to dry out, and then I wait for the drywall to magically repair itself. That would be after the pipes get rewrapped and the insulation gets put back. Somehow.
However, the relief of having FOUND AND FIXED the leak is tremendous. At last!!!
After a four-day dry spell and several "discussions" about garage door drip vs house leak with T, I called a plumber three weeks ago. The plumber came and walked around the house with me. He showed me that the puddle in front of the garage was only one symptom -- that whole side of the house was leaking. All of the weep holes were oozing water. It went around the corner in the back of the house in a mirror-to-the-front puddle back there. Ack!
He had no time, but said he would come back the next day (Friday) and check for leaks in the most likely place -- the outside spigot. He would rip a hole in the drywall (because it is easy to fix drywall, you know) and fix it right up.
Friday I took off to visit my college roommate, B, and left T to handle the plumber's return visit. That night when I walked the house, the puddle looked the same. There was a hole in the drywall on the inside of the garage and another behind the washer. The refrigerator was showing grunge under the edges. Perhaps moved?
T later explained that the drywall hole in the garage led to nothing. Totally dry. No leak.
So then the plumber pulled out the washer and made a bigger hole. Also dry.
He wanted to pull out the refrigerator and do ANOTHER hole. This is where T ran out of patience. No. No more holes in the drywall. Two will be painful enough to fix.
The plumber suggested that since the water is running the entire length of the house, it is probably running down something, hitting the slab, and spreading out along the entire side of the house. Perhaps after the dry summer, one of the four vent pipes on our (new as of May) roof was not sealed. The water runs down the vent, hits slab, spreads out, runs out the weep holes?
So on Saturday, we called the roofer. They promised to send someone. No one showed. So the next Monday, I called the roofer again. Our roof is guaranteed for 2 years. He promised to send someone. No one showed. Tuesday, another phone call and this time someone showed. T handled it. He said that non-English speakers went on the roof, messed around a bit in ways that stressed him (pulling up tiles?) and left. Did they fix anything? Did they change anything?
The next day we left for Vegas. My neighbor and cat-watcher reported no change in the weeping and puddles.
The next Monday I called the roofer again, "So, what happened? Did you change anything? Are we waiting for a fix to kick in?" I finally got someone who said, "No. They didn't find anything. Still leaking, huh? I'll send someone else." Predictably, no one appeared.
On Wednesday, I suggested that we shut off the water to the house for the day on Thursday. I would be visiting my college roommate and T would be at work. What could it hurt? T argued fiercely against it. He thought it was pointless.
I won the argument, but felt strongly that I was losing the battle of the weeping house.
Thursday night the puddle seemed unchanged. T and I discussed how to solve this, big picture. He suggested a second plumbing opinion. I said, "OK" and made an appointment with a different plumber, this time officially for the purpose of tracking down a mysterious leak.
So Friday afternoon I met Plumber#2. He walked the outside, looked over the hole in the garage drywall and indicated that he agreed with the previous plumber's approach. He strongly believed that it was a pipe problem, not a leaking roof problem. Then he pulled out a meter and attached it to our water softner and started turning the water on and off at different locations. I spent long stretches of minutes staring at a dial waiting for it to twitch. It twitched. Clearly a pipe leak. Another set of different on and off water... And clearly a pipe leak of the inside pipes, not the outside pipes. He said the next step was to narrow it down between cold and hot water. He said it is most likely the piles along the side of the leaking wall. He strongly suspected a slab leak. He gave me a quote ($550+) for how much it would cost for him and another guy to come out on Saturday and systematically track down the leak. He said that when they found it, they would cap off that pipe, and reroute the water using a new line. The quote was only for the search, not the repair.
Ugh.
But before he left, he asked if he could take a look inside the house. "Sure."
He looked over the hole in the drywall behind the washer. "Yep, that is what I would have done." He pulled out the refrigerator and said, "This is the next most likely place for the leak to be. If it is back here, I can fix the leak now. May I put a hole in your drywall?"
Ugh. Another hole & possibly find/fix the leak today vs very expensive testing tomorrow? Ugh. *Bang head on counter* "Yes. Let's test behind the frig."
And that is where we found the hole that the builders put in the pipe ten years ago. It took that long for the tack to rust out and the pipe start leaking. He fixed it in an hour for half the price the search would have cost.
Whew!
Now we wait for the walls to dry out, and then I wait for the drywall to magically repair itself. That would be after the pipes get rewrapped and the insulation gets put back. Somehow.
However, the relief of having FOUND AND FIXED the leak is tremendous. At last!!!
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no subject
Date: 2009-10-26 12:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-26 01:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-26 05:03 pm (UTC)Current humidity in your area: 67%
However, a statistical comparison of our two cities adjusting for month of the year, and time of day from www.cityrating.com/cityhumidity leads me to conclude that they are not significantly different. Do you consider your city to have relatively low humidity? I do not of mine. I do not consider it as bad as Houston (the website confirms), but still pretty high.
And it is still raining. *sigh*
no subject
Date: 2009-10-26 05:07 pm (UTC)Still glad you got the problem fixed! Good luck with the drywall patching.
no subject
Date: 2009-10-28 05:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-28 07:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-26 02:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-26 11:59 pm (UTC)