Plumbing Hell

Some strange things have been going on in my laundry room.   We noticed a month back that our laundry room floor was strangely hot.   It was nice in some ways because when you woke up or if your feet were cold you could go stand in the laundry room.   However about two weeks ago we thought we saw some moisture on the floor, but as it was raining that day we brushed it off.   Then, came the sighting. 

  

There was definitively about 1/4 teaspoon of water on the floor.   Not a lot really, just enough that you could see the water between the cracks in the cheesy ghetto linoleum tiles.  When I went to track it down, I could put my ear to the slab and hear a hissing sound.    My suspicion was that the foundation had settlement due to the drought/rains and that a crack has developed beneath under the slab.

  

A little background, pipes aren’t really supposed to be in slabs.   The rule is that any pipe in a slab is supposed to be in a ‘sleeve’ so it can move independently and not get stuck to the concrete when it moves.   The other more commercial strategy is to run pipes under a slab and then pop them above the floor to make any joints, transitions, valves, etc.   The logic being that if something goes wrong, it will be at a joint and that you need to have access to it [code can be your friend].   Most modern houses sidestep this issue altogether by running the piping in the walls and ceiling.   This is good for a number of reasons.  Notably drywall shows leaks quickly, is very cheap and if you want to move a wall for some reason, your pipe goes as well.   These were not to be and I think my hot water supply pipe is in the slab (weird I know) and that due to settlement it has cracked the pipe and caused the leak.

Sunday afternoon I start peeling back the linoleum tile.   This is at best difficult but given that my floor had been steamed for the past months by the water leak, it wasn’t too bad.    That evening I came up with a strategy and Monday I would begin in earnest. 

NOTE:  as a plumber I am may be a 6 out of 10.  The tasks you are about to read probably amount to a 6 degree of difficulty, so this would be at the max of my abilities.   However, add to the DD that Kristen is horribly sick and that the baby needs to sleep every 3 hours, put the difficulty of this repair at about 9.1.

I started out by creating a square hole in the concrete.   I turned off the hot water and drained down all the sinks, showers and tubs.   The box that I will make is about 12” x 18” with the hissing sound in the center.   The thought was that I could get in there, find the hole and patch it.   However since I don’t have a concrete saw and didn’t want to rent one of those gasoline powered behemoths, I try options #2.  I take a hammer drill and make 40 -50 holes with a 5/8” bit all the way through the slab.   The theory here is that you make a perforated opening and then chip out the center.   This would have been great but on hole 37 or 38 (you do lose count), I hit clear gold, WATER.  

Apparently, not only do I have a hot water line in the slab but I also have a water supply and of course, I hit it.  It’s not exactly my fault, it’s not like you can see what’s under your concrete.  Kristen, who is away at the grocery store during what I promised her would be 1 hour of noisy work, misses the point where I run in 6 directions at once trying to find my wrench.   You see, I have to run to the curb in front of the neighbor’s house to turn off the water to our house.  All the while the kitchen continues to fill with water ala the hole in my floor that looks like Jed Clampett shot at a opossum. 

The next 7 hours are spent chipping away the floor, dodging reinforcing bar and uncovering a mound of spaghetti that is the piping under my house.    See attached photo with scale fly-swatter.  I can’t begin to tell you how many things are wrong with the installation:   pipes bent in circles, joints facing the wrong way, nicks, kinks and huge dings.    I finally get the old copper out at 6:00 PM and go to Depot to get the copper and hopefully being dry fitting.    When working with copper, I typically buy two of everything I need with the intention of returning what I don’t need.    I hate running out of stuff. 

I’m not sure when my friend Mark came over, but we finally got everything fit and sweat by 1:00 AM.    The result – the cold water was working but there was a leak in the hot which would require more chipping in the morning when I could be noisy again.   I put some plastic under the joints and decide to call it a day.    The plastic is there to highlight any leaks that happen overnight and serve as a check. 

After I put my stuff away, I got in the shower to clean the grime off (nothing like a cold shower after a hard day’s work) at 2:00 AM.  

Tuesday – I’m pretty exhausted and my hands are cut to hell from the concrete, copper and the hammer drill.   My knees and back are killing me from being in a hole all day so I sleep till about 10:00 and then don’t get started until almost noon.    

The first think that happens is that the plastic shows that there is in fact a leak in yesterdays work and it will have to be removed and replaced.   No big whoop.    I cut it out and replace it in 1.5 hours all while ‘da nugget’ is napping.  Then continue the digging.

2 hours in and I’m finally ready to the pipe back in.    This should be easy and I’m still hoping to hit 6 o’clock bath time, but it’s not to be.   The old pipe is just too dinged up and it takes me 4 attempts to finally get the temperature of the thicker walled older pipe to hit optimal temp at the same time as the new pipe and therefore accept the solder.     In the end, the hole is 21” x 38”.

At 8:00, Kristen finally is able to jump into the shower.   I clean up and get mine at 9:00.  

So tonight is the same drill.   Plastic is down and we’ll do a 24 hour test to see if any leaks appear and then go about closing up the hole and deciding how we’re going to finish it. 

I’m thinking of packing the hole with sand and then putting a light layer (say 1.5 -2 “) of concrete on top.   That way, if something goes wrong, I will always have the ability to get to it pretty easily rather than digging through 5” of concrete hell and steel.   I think this will accept the tile and if I line the tile up right, it should allow an almost ‘access panel ‘ type design. 

I was asked, ‘why didn’t you get a day laborer to help you dig the hole?’.   The answer is that a day laborer is great for digging in the soil or moving things around but in general they’re a ‘blunt’ instrument.   The nature of uncovering pipe that are encased in concrete is very delicate and to do so without blundering though the wrong pipe, hitting a gas line, confusing re-bar with a pipe, is a very difficult thing to explain.