[NJARC] Need Help -

[Scott Roberts]

You know what is almost as bad as a water leak in the basement in the fall?   A burst heater pipe over the garage and behind a back wall, in winter!

Several years ago, at my parents old place, they were away for a couple weeks, and I was there alone. It was the middle of winter, and there was a good deal of snow on the ground. Consequently, I was not surprised to see ice on the ground in front of the garage. After a couple days, I noticed that no matter what I did, the ice seemed to get thicker every day. A few more days went by, and late one night I went into the garage to do something on one of the two antique cars I had in there- I hadn't been in there since shortly after my folks went away, being otherwise occupied. I opened the door to discover a tropical steam room! The entire garage was full of STEAM!

So I walked in to discover the ceiling of my work room(which was 1/2 of the original garage, which had had a new two car garage added perpendicular to it) had collapsed, and there was hot water running down the walls, and out, across the floor, and out the garage door. Hence the thick ice. Being only slightly familiar with the heating system, I immediately went to the heater room, and discerned the proper circuit to cut off- it was one which had been added for the rear section of the house, a later addition from the early 1970's, before we'd bought the place. I also called the oil company, and they sent a guy out- at 2 am!

Long story short, we discovered the heater pipe for the back room had been run outside the back wall, just under the siding! With the extreme cold, and low use of the heat back there, it had frozen solid- causing several severe line ruptures- until it also burst in the attic, and flooded the ceiling which collapsed.

Talk about a MESS! The workshop took a good deal of cleaning up, the cars took some cleaning(they only had been steamed), and it took about a week to find all the leaks in the system!. They finally just replaced the whole line.

Just thought I'd share!
Scott



--- On Sat, 11/29/08, John Dilks K2TQN <oldradio at worldnet.att.net> wrote:

> From: John Dilks K2TQN <oldradio at worldnet.att.net>
> Subject: Re: [NJARC] Need Help -
> To: "New Jersey Antique Radio Club" <njarc at mailman.qth.net>
> Date: Saturday, November 29, 2008, 1:19 PM
> Visit our web site - See http://www.njarc.org
> _______________________________________________
> At 11:42 AM 11/29/2008, you wrote:
> > In a message dated 11/29/2008 6:04:51 AM Pacific
> Standard Time, n4fs at eozinc.com writes:
> >> As some of you know at the end of May my water
> heater in the basement burst
> >> and filled my almost 2000 sq feet basement with 2
> inches of water
> 
> I saw an episode of this old house where the plumber put a
> plastic tray under the water heater and added a liquid
> detector to the tray and it controlled the water supply to
> the heater.  The plumber said it always happens when you are
> away or sleeping.
> 
> 73, John 
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