If you haven't read the beginning - scroll down to the previous post before reading this one.
So we went to bed on Tuesday night with a leak somewhere above the dryer in the basement. Overnight our 2 gallon bucket was filled with water and we *thought* we knew from whence the leak sprung. We were wrong.
Wednesday, The Husband went to work but he sent his parents over to help me out. Grandma kept the kids out of my hair (thank you, thank you, thank you!) while Grandpa helped me trace the leak. Well we discovered that it wasn't coming from the pipe that we thought. It appeared to be squeezing out of the floor and onto the pipe. Yes, really.
So Dad and I continued to try to track down the source. The dripping in the basement was now taking place nowhere near any pipes. And no, there are no pipes in the floor because the basement is unfinished and you can trace all of the pipes, yet we had a 6" circle of wet in the 100 year old hardwood.
Well, on top of the wood is asubfloor, then two layers of linoleum, then another subfloor then ceramic tiles. We wondered if the dishwasher might be leaking and pushing water out from between the layers of linoleum over to this spot in the floor two feet away (which, by the way, was literally spraying out of the floor and onto the pipe). Let's pull out the dishwasher and take a look. Great idea except we could only get the dishwasher out halfway (because the "hole" that it sits in is on the first layer of linoleum, a good 3/4 of an inch below the current floor). Now what? I know! Cut a hole in the cabinet so we can look behind the dishwasher! Umm, no water there. Now what? I guess we need to pull up the flooring down to the original hardwood.
So I pulled up the tile and Dad pulled up the top layer of subfloor and two layers of linoleum. That was the easy part because there was a piece of plywood almost the size of the stove so we didn't have to cut the plywood, just pull up the 27 nails. The lower subfloor was a different story. So I pulled out the Roto-Zip and started cutting. Slowly. Because I kept breaking bits. Then I picked up the saw and the bit fell out. For those of you unfamiliar with spiral saws (Sassy Neighbor...) that's not a good thing.
So I started calling neighbors looking for another one to borrow. Nobody around here seems to be home during the day.... Fortunately Builder Neighbor was home! And he has a Roto-Zip! And he agreed to take a look at mine. So I went over and related the story, including the part about how I thought the house was haunted by a water-dripping ghost. Well, not only did he come over to see for himself (and he agreed with me about everything - except the haunting part - but with him shining a flashlight at the leak and me looking at it from a different angle I finally spotted it - a pinhole leak in a pipe 6" below the wet floor. I thaked him profusely for his advice and time, but then he proceeded to replace my subflooring under the stove, replace the stove, push back the dishwasher
and reinstall it. Then he apologized for not having his plumbing equipment at home (that's ok - The Husband needs to have some part in all this).
So as a 'thank you' for folks like that I usually make a loaf of beer bread or give them the mix (it's from Tastefully Simple and it's really good), but Builder Neighbor's wife is the consultant I buy it from so it probably wouldn't be the most thoughtful idea.
So here's a photo, per Jenny's request, of the mess in progress. I was going to take a few photos of the lovely holes I cut and the floor I was attempting to destroy, but Builder Neighbor got the kitchen cleaned up before I knew what happened! I still have to replace the tile in front of the refrigerator and thaw out the big ice dam inside that is the reason for that leaking. Oh, and The Husband still needs to fix the leaky pipe in the basement so that we can turn the hot water back on.
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