So about a week before Christmas, we addressed it. Disclaimer is going in right here. This is going to get ugly. You may not want to keep reading. Nasty things are in store. Disturbing photos. Ew. Just, EWWwwww.
On a Saturday morning, Todd informed me that the previous night, when he'd stepped behind the TV in the family room, the carpet was all wet. That morning, he set out to discover why.
We'd seen a water mark on the edge of the ceiling there, but it was dry and looked old. This is located below and a bit to the right of our kitchen sink upstairs. We thought it might have been a leftover mark from when we'd had some issues with the dishwasher leaking. Since the dishwasher hadn't leaked in a while, and the area was dry, we figured the problem was over. Not so!
In three places, the real wood tongue-and-groove paneling had buckled outward. That can't be good. When he removed the paneling down to the sheetrock, he found this:
Those small black marks on the wall were glue from the paneling, so ignore those. The big black stains and dark areas were the real problem. Ew. Black mold? Yuck. And the cement floor was wet, too. The section of carpet pad there had to be removed completely. And the ceiling had some on it as well. We obviously have a leak, and it's NOT old, and it's been going on for some time now.
After he pulled off the sheetrock (in wet chunks that fell apart -- filling a few garbage bags to get it out of the house), and some of the insulation, he found this:
That's the black plastic "vapor barrier", but take note of those two center furring strips and the matching wood baseboard. Matching, because they're all completely soaked and with more mold on them. No pretty yellow wood color here! The cement wall was wet. It went all the way to the corner of the room, so Todd took out another section of wall (to make sure it didn't extend further). He also cut a section of the ceiling, for access into the pipes area. Once the insulation was removed there, the pipes looked like this:
Yeah, that's a lot of corrosion on the copper water supply pipe. But that's not where the leak was. If you look, you can see some brown goo on the bottom of the black drain pipe, where the wye section meets the straight section. Todd thought perhaps a pinhole at first -- then reached up and discovered the big crack. THAT was our leak.
So he removed all the wet materials, and hung an old ice cream bucket there to catch the drips.
It stayed looking like this for several days -- through Christmas -- as we let it all dry out. But first came the pipe repair. Can I just say how very thankful I am for a handyman husband? Because this would have been pretty pricey to have it contracted out.
We talked about re-doing the family room. But we're not ready for that project. It's not even on the remodeling radar. So the fix for now will have to just be a minimum, to get the room functional again.
Please forgive this next photo. It IS nasty. No one should ever need to know about the sludge in their drain pipes. I'm sure because this is the kitchen sink, there's less hair and more grease. (And I'm not even one for pouring grease down the drain. So if you do that -- beware! Let this be a lesson to you!) There is very little space that's clear for water passage here.
The rest of the story is prettier, but just as time-consuming. If not more. After it all dried out, Todd replaced it all with new stuff: plastic barrier, new wood (pressure-treated on the floorboards), new insulation. The drain pipe is repaired.
I thought it might all be worth it if he could find the diamond ring his mother once lost down the kitchen sink. No such luck, though.
And finally, new sheetrock. We laid the carpet back over, but there's no pad under it there. Fortunately, it's not a high-traffic area. One of these days, we'll have to get our carpet guy to come back and fix it for us.
And what have we learned here?
1. There is no such thing as an old leak. And nothing will "fix itself".
2. Think twice before you wash that crud down your drain.
3. Marrying for money is way overrated. Marry for talent. It pays off in the end.
Makes me glad I married for talent.
ReplyDeleteThat pipe was super gross! High five for awesomeness.