It wasn’t my favorite way to spend a Friday, but it could have been much worse. I was getting ready for church, so I turned on the shower and stepped into the tub, waiting for the water to cool down (we have to drain the super-scalding water from the pipes that run from the roof first, then adjust the mix between the “lukewarm” water and the hot water from the tank). Suddenly the shower head started hissing at me like a snake, the water pressure and the temperature doubled, and I leaped out of the way of the boiling jet that had a life of its own. Within seconds, I was enveloped in steam and could barely see my way out of the bathroom.
I called for Josh, who is my go-to, fix everything guy and he turned off the shower then tested both the hot and cold sides. The cold side wasn’t giving any water, but we could hear noise in the pipes and a rusty sludge came out. On the hot side was an out of control vapor that would take your skin off.
I was thinking I would skip the shower and call the plumber when we got home from church when we heard water running — the pipe behind the toilet had started spraying water all over the floor and there was an area of previous repair in the tile wall where water was spraying through the cracks. There was no way to turn off the water at the base of the toilet, so Josh called for towels and we built a “wall” to funnel all the runoff into the bathroom floor drain.
Josh went to go call the landlord and to find the switch to turn off the water pump. I went out front and found that we were flooding the street . . .
The water covered our front walk, ran down our stairs, out onto the street and around the corner. I didn’t know where it was coming from, but at least that portion of it wasn’t in our house!
But this part was — the boys started yelling that water was coming through the ceiling into the living room. I guess the bathroom drain couldn’t handle all the water and it started coming down like a gentle shower of rain.
More towels
splish! splash! Thank God for tile floors (and a rented house!)
Let’s play in the rain!
All that water out on the street? It turns out it was coming from the pipe that broke on our roof. A cascade of pipe problems. The pressure in the pipes from the roof tank breaking caused several places in the house to fail. Not only did the plumbers have to go into the wall and fix those breaks, but two days later one of our toilets and showers stopped working because the increased pressure broke their lines as well. I hope that was the last of it — I’m sure the plumbing crew is tired of living at our house.