One night, not too long after we arrived here on Dec 10th, I used the main bathroom just before I went to sleep. I noticed that there was a strange whooshing sound coming from the shower drain, it sounded rather like air was being sucked into the drain. I pondered the possible causes. It seemed to me that if the p-trap was empty that air would be coming out not going in. And if it were coming out it would definitely smell like sewer gas. This was just a noise, no smell involved. I thought maybe the fridge which was on the other side of the wall was acting up so I checked that, no problem there.
I toddled off to bed and in the morning pointed the strange noise out to Harry. He was equally mystified. To our horror though, when we went into the kitchen there was water on the floor both under the fridge and in the pantry...yikes! My worst fears were realized, we had a leak under the cement floor.
But where was it coming from. Was it in the kitchen or was it coming from the plumbing in the bathroom? It is a big deal to start carving up the floor not knowing where the problem is. We knew that the technology existed to pinpoint a subterranean leak but it sadly was not available here.
We then hit upon a brilliant idea. Our friend Norma was in SanDiego visiting her sister. Perhaps we could get it sent there and she could bring it back. Mercifully we were able to arrange that and she did bring it back. In the meantime we shut the water off and just turned it on occasionally to shower or do dishes or flush. I have to say that got old after 10 days.
When we got the machine we were able to determine that the sound was the loudest near the baseboard behind the fridge in the kitchen. There is a water line that runs up the wall and we were hoping that the elbow joints in that line had given way. The other place it was loudest was to the right of the drain. We decided to start in the kitchen because I didn't want to start tearing up the floor in the shower.
When Abigail got the wall open there was no stream of water....crud. He pulled out sand and kept shoving his arm in until he could feel an airspace where the sand had washed away....dang it was under the floor of the shower.
Then we marked the floor in the shower, pulled up the stones and chiseled a hole. Eureka, there was the source of the problem.
then I replaced the stones...
and the grout....
and voila! you would never know!!
I toddled off to bed and in the morning pointed the strange noise out to Harry. He was equally mystified. To our horror though, when we went into the kitchen there was water on the floor both under the fridge and in the pantry...yikes! My worst fears were realized, we had a leak under the cement floor.
But where was it coming from. Was it in the kitchen or was it coming from the plumbing in the bathroom? It is a big deal to start carving up the floor not knowing where the problem is. We knew that the technology existed to pinpoint a subterranean leak but it sadly was not available here.
We then hit upon a brilliant idea. Our friend Norma was in SanDiego visiting her sister. Perhaps we could get it sent there and she could bring it back. Mercifully we were able to arrange that and she did bring it back. In the meantime we shut the water off and just turned it on occasionally to shower or do dishes or flush. I have to say that got old after 10 days.
When we got the machine we were able to determine that the sound was the loudest near the baseboard behind the fridge in the kitchen. There is a water line that runs up the wall and we were hoping that the elbow joints in that line had given way. The other place it was loudest was to the right of the drain. We decided to start in the kitchen because I didn't want to start tearing up the floor in the shower.
When Abigail got the wall open there was no stream of water....crud. He pulled out sand and kept shoving his arm in until he could feel an airspace where the sand had washed away....dang it was under the floor of the shower.
Then we marked the floor in the shower, pulled up the stones and chiseled a hole. Eureka, there was the source of the problem.
The lower part of the T had never been glued since the house was built. What changed is that the water pressure is much higher this year and it finally sprayed enough and washed enough sand away that the water was hitting the drain pipe. Thank God because it had been leaking since day one and I could never figure out how the water was getting under the tile and creating calcium deposits on the grout lines in the living room. Otherwise we might never have caught it.
Abigail filled in the sand and redid the concrete....
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