Home Improvement
We're are having some big home improvement done at our house today. As I have mentioned before, I file home improvement projects into two categories: self-chosen projects intended to make things better, and mandatory projects forced upon you when something breaks.
Unfortunately, this project falls in the latter category. On Monday of this week we discovered that we had a water leak in our hallway bathroom. After consulting with several plumbing companies, we have learned that one of the hot water pipes in the house foundation is leaking. Apparently, your two options when this happens is to spot fix the leak, or reroute your pipes.
Now, at first thought it seems obvious that you would just want to just fix the leaky spot, as this is obviously the less-expensive option. Unfortunately, in houses that are a little older (ours is almost 30 years), fixing one leak sometimes leads to other leaks. At first this didn't make sense to me, until yesterday's plumber explained that if you've had reduced water pressure for a length of time due to a small crack in a pipe, fixing it and restoring full water pressure can sometimes cause worn down pipes to break in other places. And plus there's the factor that now when they build houses most builders don't even put water pipes in the foundation. They basically say, "I don't know what those builders thirty years ago were thinking", and route the pipes overhead. There's also the influential factor of the overhead pipe system having its own 25 year warranty, as well.
So, as you might have guessed, we are having our water pipes rerouted today, as soon as Juan the Plumber (aka the Attic Rat) arrives. I hope he arrives soon though, because as hot as it has been outside, I can't imagine how hot it gets in the attic.
I would like to say that the hot weather has helped us enjoy our all-cold showers this week while we were waiting for the repair, but alas, it has not. However, all-cold water is better than our first 12+ hours of no water at all. Plus, after today's job, all should be well in Hot Water World at our house.
At least for now.
Oh! That's not a good thing. You may recall we had a slab leak and they ended up jack-hammering a big hole in the living room floor. For a while there we had a sauna in the living room.
Been there, done that, did not enjoy. I will say that we should have combined house catastrophes for the week. We had A/C break. Something about the capacitor (which makes me want Michael J. Fox to show up in a DeLorean). Anyway, we have thoroughly enjoyed cold showers in our 87* house -- and we even had hot water that we didn't use.
Oh, I feel your pain. Even as I write we still have a hole in our kitchen ceiling that has yet to be fixed from our water leak. The pipe has been fixed (finally) after several pin hole leaks that take forever to be detected (not until the drywall in your ceiling is completely saturated and ready to collapse) but the hole has not. Another home improvement project! :) Good thing I know an architect! Heard he's even cheap!
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