Hoody
Administrator
- Joined
- Oct 24, 2007
- Messages
- 6,391
- Location
- Bowling Green, Ohio
- Name
- Steven Hoodlebrink
- Years of Experience
- 20
We had temps in the negatives and low teens for a week or better. When my son is not here I just trickled the water line so the line didn't freeze up. Well, his toilet needed rebuilt because it would run constantly and I shut it off after he left Thursday and kept the sink trickling instead. Sunday I decide to head to home depot and get a rebuild kit.
Get home get the toilet fixed, flush it and see if it keeps running - woohoo I did something right for once! Well, nature called so figured I might as well test it out and adjuster the water level. On the third flush, water hit my feet so I grab the plunger and water starts shooting out of the sink.
I grab my little trusty infrared thermometer and head under the house. Part of the pipe is showing 40-50 degrees until I get to an 8" section that is reading in the teens and 20's. It was at the moment I knew it finally happened to me.
So I begin wondering if I really want to run extension cords out and sit there with a hair dryer or heat gun. Not feeling it, so let's just fill the tub with hot water. Wouldn't you know it, water starts coming out the bottom of the toilet into the bathroom....
Luckily the rest of the house drained fine as his bathroom is the highest part in the main sewer line. In the meantime water kept coming in from under the toilet as I'm standing there ripping off every profanity known.
So there I was, armed with a Bissell spot machine and the legs of a cheetah(haha just kidding I'm short) to dump the little tank down our master bath toilet across the house. Did that from 10:30 to about 4 AM filling the tub once more the ice finally cleared and everything drained again. Turns out, the pitch in the line flattened out and while we were in the negative degree temps I was trickling his faucet and just causing a big ice block to form. That part was the easy fix. But how water was coming down from the bottom of the toilet I wasn't sure if I split a pipe or not. So I said screw it I'll deal with it in the morning.
Catch 3 hours of sleep, wake up, fill the tub up, pull the drain and run outside check for leaks, we're good to go.
Called a WDR company we use to clean contents for, reach their answering service, owner recognized my name and personally called me back and asked what I had going on. He sends a guy out and his is where it gets fun....for me. I'm tired as I've only gotten 9 hours of sleep in the last 72 and my son has asthma and breathing issues and I just want this taken care of.
It's a small bathroom and I was able to keep the damage to a minimum but my vanity cabinet is wet, exterior dry wall is wet about 1.5" up, and a penetrating meter tells me under my vinyl is wet but luckily it didn't cross over into my son's room, and water did run down into my duct vent that has insulated duct work. This guy gets here, looks at the damage underneath(insulation I pulled to check out the pipes) comes inside uses a non-penetrating meter checks the walls, not the cabinet nor the floor. Tells me they're going to replace a section of duct work, replace insulation and plastic barrier, and spray antimicrobial up on the pipe and subfloor from underneath. That's it.
This was my face at that moment:
Get home get the toilet fixed, flush it and see if it keeps running - woohoo I did something right for once! Well, nature called so figured I might as well test it out and adjuster the water level. On the third flush, water hit my feet so I grab the plunger and water starts shooting out of the sink.
I grab my little trusty infrared thermometer and head under the house. Part of the pipe is showing 40-50 degrees until I get to an 8" section that is reading in the teens and 20's. It was at the moment I knew it finally happened to me.
So I begin wondering if I really want to run extension cords out and sit there with a hair dryer or heat gun. Not feeling it, so let's just fill the tub with hot water. Wouldn't you know it, water starts coming out the bottom of the toilet into the bathroom....
Luckily the rest of the house drained fine as his bathroom is the highest part in the main sewer line. In the meantime water kept coming in from under the toilet as I'm standing there ripping off every profanity known.
So there I was, armed with a Bissell spot machine and the legs of a cheetah(haha just kidding I'm short) to dump the little tank down our master bath toilet across the house. Did that from 10:30 to about 4 AM filling the tub once more the ice finally cleared and everything drained again. Turns out, the pitch in the line flattened out and while we were in the negative degree temps I was trickling his faucet and just causing a big ice block to form. That part was the easy fix. But how water was coming down from the bottom of the toilet I wasn't sure if I split a pipe or not. So I said screw it I'll deal with it in the morning.
Catch 3 hours of sleep, wake up, fill the tub up, pull the drain and run outside check for leaks, we're good to go.
Called a WDR company we use to clean contents for, reach their answering service, owner recognized my name and personally called me back and asked what I had going on. He sends a guy out and his is where it gets fun....for me. I'm tired as I've only gotten 9 hours of sleep in the last 72 and my son has asthma and breathing issues and I just want this taken care of.
It's a small bathroom and I was able to keep the damage to a minimum but my vanity cabinet is wet, exterior dry wall is wet about 1.5" up, and a penetrating meter tells me under my vinyl is wet but luckily it didn't cross over into my son's room, and water did run down into my duct vent that has insulated duct work. This guy gets here, looks at the damage underneath(insulation I pulled to check out the pipes) comes inside uses a non-penetrating meter checks the walls, not the cabinet nor the floor. Tells me they're going to replace a section of duct work, replace insulation and plastic barrier, and spray antimicrobial up on the pipe and subfloor from underneath. That's it.
This was my face at that moment:
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