Plumbing nightmare

C Craft

Well-Known Member
This little rant is dedicated to the hurricane survivors. You forget until you have to go thru even a little piece of it, what it is like. I was awoken about five this morning. Thus is the life of chronic pain. I went to bed about a 1;45 so my brain is trying to figure out what she is telling me. After the second time or maybe the third! It sunk in she could hear water running and the hot water heater is going!! So I get up and sure enough I can tell there is water running somewhere and the hot water heater in the garage is cooking along! So I grabbed the flashlight went out all around the house came back and told her no water showing up outside. So started going thru the house and the rooms adjoining the bathrooms and kitchen. Still no water! Water is definitely running though. So I go to the street to cut it off. while I am right here I will check the meter. Can't see the meter anymore as they put an updated electric meter reading device on it about a month ago. So by now I should reveal that back in 2005 the year of all the hurricanes we experienced a pipe in the slab bursting, right after we got water and electricity back!! The copper had re-acted to the chirp in the clay. Not sure I am spelling that correctly but it is the whitish/gray streaks you will find in red clay. Anyway they seem to think in some cases it causes a reaction with the copper within the soil. And actually deteriorates a pin hole in the copper pipe!! Well so we have been out of water since this morning about 5:30 AM. So I had forgotten how much fun that is! It is kind of like camping in the house. To the folks who still don't have power or water I will have to say I do have a leg up!! But you would be surprised how many times you turn on a faucet or flush the toilet when you don't actually have water. I had some water on hand form Irma's uncertain approach to the area. And experience had me collecting water before I shut it off this morning. I turned it on this afternoon for a short while and we collected water again. The water you wash with is poured into a collection bucket that is used to flush toilets later, or emergency clean-up a spill on the floor! You brush your teeth that water then goes in the collection bucket for flushes later. Tonight's bathing water will be warmed and after use goes in the collection bucket. You learn to prioritize your flushes as it truly necessary at this moment! The reason I haven't called a plumber is to find a leak such as one under the slab requires a specialized plumber and you are looking at anywhere from $150 - $300 dollars. That is Monday thru Friday during business hrs. On a weekend/emergency it is $50 - $75 dollars show up fee and can be upwards of $100 pr. hr. So that bill could feasibly the neighborhood of $700 - $800. So I try to reach the Ins Co. to see if my policy will cover the emergency fee. Of course you can't reach anyone on the weekend . You can reach a line to report that the house burnt to the ground but, they can't tell you anything if your policy will cover and emergency fee. So I guess Monday I will have to hit a plumber early, cause I can't afford those kind of rates out of my pocket!! OK so I am thru ranting and back to the poor folks still suffering for the tragedy of the hurricanes. True I do have power to type this rant and I am sitting in the AC but we done this back in 2005 for almost 3 weeks. Every morning we got up and after a short breakfast we gathered water from a neighbor who had a well. We went thru the day working daylight till dark to shove down something for supper. Heat water for baths and gas the generator to lay in front of a fan so you could at least not sweat while you were not sleeping. Then daylight and you start it all over again. Today has really made my heart go out to all that still may not have power or water!!!! It begins to remind you of back in the day, when the day began at sunrise and wound down shorty after dark!! I know why they was tired! LOL Gotta laugh, it helps to keep from crying! Cliff
 
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Well I got my first shower tonight since the leak about 5 AM Sat. Boy did that ever feel good. Well I did construction from the time I was 14 years old and was shocked and somewhat in disbelief when I was shown the leak in my pipe was six inches from the one in 2005. All you folks in Florida need to read this pieces!

http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20141114/entlife/141119476/

http://www.repairmyleak.com/about/failure-copper.htm

I built many a home in my time and I always under the impression that it was about the best out there. My home was built about 24 years ago and I am afraid that all the copper in the ground will eventually fail!

That shower tonight cost me about $1600. dollars. $300.00 for leak detection, (that was a Monday rate), $400.00 to bust through slab and make an attempt to fix the pipe in the ground only to find it was so deteriorated that the use of a small tubing cutter was doing nothing but collapsing the severally corroded, from the inside copper pipe. They then patched the concrete but that doesn't include the vinyl in my laundry room! Then another $900.00 to cut open the wall behind the water heater and run a line up and overhead to come back down to another hole cut in the wall behind my refrigerator, and tie into the manifold that supplies hot water to the rest of the house! All to a tune of $1600.00!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Man I feel like the old boy on the old show, Hew Haw, if it weren't for bad luck I wouldn't have any luck at all!
 
So guess I am the only one looking at this thread!! My adjuster came yesterday and talked about the great work the company I had used to fix my busted pipe under the slab! Whaaaaaaaaaaaat! I have been out of the business too long, I don't call there work great but I have seen worse! Wow prices have gone up as well. The adjuster talked like it was such a great price, really!! Wow!
 
That sucks C. I haven't had anything like that happen to my home but I have seen copper pipe failure, mostly at bends and 90s, just the friction of the water making sharp turns will erode the inside walls. until recently I ran the leak truck for my company for around 17 years, nothing but fixing leaks {natural gas}.

A good percentage was road construction hits but most were residential leaks at the meter set. the salt water in the air where I live corrodes everything. even on a epoxy coated riser all it takes is a few scratches from a pipe wrench and corrosion starts to set in. galvanized pipe is another problem, anywhere it touches earth electrolysis starts the corrosion.

Back to water lines, I've noticed it's becoming code to install backflow preventers in most places, what most people aren't aware of is once there installed your house water has nowhere to go when it expands from the water heater. this is a for real problem. if an expansion tank isn't installed the water is building pressure with nowhere for it to go. that can lead to leaks, and usually the relief valve on the water heater will start weeping on and off. if the backflow preventer is 100s of feet away like in a submersible well pump it probably won't mater, but if it's within a 100 ft. or so of hour house, they put a lot of stress on old existing pipes.
 
Steve I have heard of the galvanized pipe problem. In fact a few years ago I go out back of my mother in laws house and I hear this hissing sound. Finally traced it to where the galvanized pipe came out of the ground feeding the farm propane tank for the house! Would have been real bad if I were still smoking back then. However I had already quit! I was going to put copper in but, by law it has to be galvanized pipe. So took some old burlap and soaked in tar and wrapped it around the new pipe down below ground level and about 6" up out of the ground.

Ted my attitude is about used up and if I said what I felt like saying, weeeeeeeeeeeeeeell they would kick me out of here!! I have to look at it this way, it is real hard to do without water and especially without hot water when it comes to shower time. I can only bathe out of a bucket half full of boiled water and cold, before it get rather old. If I had know where the leak was and how to fix it. I probably could have done it myself. I know when I was in better shape and wore a younger man's clothes, ain't no doubt I would have done it!!! It's hell to get old and my hip, knees, back and heart all compete for who is gonna give it up first!!
 
Did great on this one, we only got some tropical storm rains and wind. So we fared well.

I have been tying to get a hold of Ken H. As the worst of the feeders were headed towards him.
He may have decided to go not sure but so far I haven't been able to raise him!!

I think the worst of it was around Bilox, Mississippi! More storm surge there than anything. I think the saving grace of this one was the speed at which it came across the Gulf. It set a record for that! Tornadoes and storm surge and diseased trees coupled with high winds! Yes, thank you Lord!! Amen
 
Thanks for worrying about me Cliff - things are good here. Power didn't even blip during the night, but internet was out when I got up this morning. After noontime when internet came back on.

Glad it wasn't any worse than it was.
 
Yep, that one was moving so fast it was, wham bam thank you ma'am! Never really had a chance to get its act together but, hey I ain't complaining. It is getting about time for the storms to start peeling off and head north before the get to the US. At least lets hope!
 
Cliff....in the Northridge quake of '94 a lot of us had cracked slabs and broken pipes in the slab. most guys had to fix their own as getting anyone to come out was impossible as repairmen were on overload. It was like war zone. One apartment that was 3 stories collapsed so perfectly that no-one noticed that it was now "two stories" A few people died in that one...

anyhow....most guys ran pvc or copper up through the walls and over the ceiling and then dropped back down. I could tell which of my friends did their own repair by the patches in their drywall...lol.

Hard to believe that was 23 years ago...remember it like it was yesterday.

In Cali at the time...Cal Tech said the quake was 7.2...they hurriedly corrected themselves and downgraded to 6.9....hmmm....the state law was that anyone with damage within a certain distance did not have to pay property taxes if the quake was over 7.0. All the other monitoring spots said it was 7.1-7.3. Well...Cal Tech gets gov't funds so they must have had a "correction" from the state. I've been in a lot of quakes...they almost always happen when you're asleep. That quake was violent! My dad lived in Northridge at the time and getting to his house was a big game of dodge the rubble. It was months before I could drive my regular route to work.
 
hurriedly corrected themselves and downgraded to 6.9....hmmm....the state law was that anyone with damage within a certain distance did not have to pay property taxes if the quake was over 7.0. All the other monitoring spots said it was 7.1-7.3.

Ted, you don't really think there was collusion going on do you? Naw, nothing like that ever happens in politics :)
 
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