Flash Flood...In My House!

I spent most of Friday afternoon outside; I had the day off and it was a rare non-dusty day even though the breeze had kicked up. I figured it would be better to mow the lawn and choke on just the pollen and dirt that had been kicked around recently rather than add additional dust that had come in from New Mexico as was forecast to happen on Saturday. Having a three day weekend also made it a great time to get caught up and ready for our annual Canadian River Run in a couple of weeks as well as (finally) change the Z71 over to Mobil 1 synthetic to try and boost the gas mileage as much as I could. So, I had spent a full day outside, was covered in grass clippings, dust, and the noxious smell of gasoline and 2-stroke engine exhaust. The hot shower felt rather good!

Having forgotten a few items on my last grocery store trip as well as needing to get oil/filters for both the Jeep and Z71, I headed out Saturday afternoon to round up all the stuff. Realizing that I did in fact buy items needing refrigeration, I swung by the house since it was on the way to O'Reilly Auto Parts (WalMart was sold out of both 10W and 5W-30 oil!) but perhaps it was divine intervention (it turns out O'Reillys had the oil about $2 cheaper for a 4-quart container and 75 cents cheaper for 1-quart...but I digress). When I pulled into the garage, I noticed water pooled on the floor, along the wall, and in my garage closet. Several "colorful adjectives" flew out of my mouth in quick succession and I swung open the water heater closet doors only to find things dry as a bone. Running into the house, I could see where water had seeped under the wall and where the grout was wet in the laundry closet but all the hoses to the washing machine were dry. Thoughts went from leaking hot water heater to busted pipe in the slab. Next I ran into my bedroom to find that, yes, the carpet sounded like walking in the Canadian River mud...sopping wet.

Not knowing what was going on, I went and shut off the water to the whole house. Fortunately I have a homeowner's warranty from when I bought this house so the next call was to the warranty company to file an emergency repair order. Unfortunately the automated system wouldn't escalate up to an emergency so I had to spend 15 minutes or so on a second call trying to get to an actual person. Luck was on my side and I was able to get the service request upgraded to emergency after talking with a very helpful and responsive gal named Valencia (THANK YOU!). The difference you ask? Having to wait until Monday for a plumber to come out versus the next day. Once all this was done by 7 pm, I made one last trip over to Home Depot to rent a wet-vac since mine disappeared during the move (can't complain; was the most expensive of 3 items that disappeared...). The rest of the evening was spent trying to suck up as much moisture out of the carpet and pad as I could...about 2 full tanks of water.

At 11 am, the plumber came to the house and opened up the shutoff valve. Only problem was the meter wasn't spinning. I say problem; it was good because that meant it wasn't a leak in the slab. Bad news was he still had to track the problem down or I'd end up paying all the emergency fees. The next test was to run something through the washing machine and that did the trick. No sooner did he turn on the hot cycle and he could see water running underneath the water heater closet (it also holds my A/C and the return-air registers feed underneath there). Unfortunately came the part where he had to rip out some drywall.

Here is the culprit:
The leaking section was about 4 feet up from the elbow or about halfway between the hot water heater and elbow to distribute hot water through the house. Only problem was that the access to this busted pipe was through the laundry room wall:
After two hours, the leak is fixed and I now have hot water...but I lost an entire day of my weekend waiting for the plumber and continuing to try and mitigate the "flood" damage in my bedroom. I also have to wait for the home warranty company to schedule a drywall person to come in and rough-out patches to the drywall. The insurance adjuster will also be called Monday...unfortunately my attempt to vacuum up the water and then steam clean must not have been good enough even in this arid climate I live in. I'm starting to smell mold/mildew in there so it looks like I'll have to see what can be done. It never fails...just as soon as I plink down quite a bit of moolah for ham radio and stormchasing gear, something major breaks. My house now looks and smells ghetto...a cut up trash bag with painters tape covering the holes in the drywall with the smell of wet carpet in part of the house.

Hopefully it won't interrupt a trip to the Hill Country this week...I need the break!