Water Leak

Water Leak

I walked into the house one day in December after lunch and Gracie, one of our cats, was sitting on a built-in counter in our living room watching a puddle of water.  She can be a bit "free-spirited" at times, so my first thought was "What the hell did she get into now?"  Nel has a snow globe on one of the shelves above, but it was still full.  I finally noticed a little drop of water running down the wood from a small seam above.  Leak!

I couldn't really figure out where it was coming from but I knew it was in the ceiling between the first and second floors.  It didn't seem to be leaking any more so I sat down for a minute and then heard the unmistakable sound of water pouring out of the speaker in the ceiling.  Ugh.  

We were supposed to have a Christmas Party at our place in just a few days, and I'll admit that my first thought was "This might get me out of having to go through with that".  I have a plumber that I use from time to time but he wasn't answering his phone.  I had no choice but to go to the phone book and call one of those big companies.  I don't mind them - they usually do good work, but they bill with an extra digit compared to your average private plumber.  Regardless, I had no choice.  

They showed up in about an hour and ripped into the ceiling.  What they discovered was a pin-hole leak in a hot water line that was located in about the worst possible place it could be.  There was no attic access and it was right between a stud passing between two walls.  Our house was built in 1980 and back then they used galvanized pipes.  It's really only a matter of time before you start having these types of issues.  They replaced about a 10 foot section of pipe and had to cut out ceiling sections in two rooms to do it.  They did a good job, cleaned up, and charged me a fortune.  Exactly what I expected. 

Drywall repair starts with a patch.  Sanding and texture follow.

Our leak was now fixed, but that was only part of the problem.  Now I had holes in my living room and dinette ceilings and a party in two days.  Fortunately, our painter has a good drywall guy who agreed to come over after his work day was done and fix our ceiling on his own time.  He came two nights in a row and did a great job.  Drywall itself isn't really that hard, but sanding and matching texture perfectly is an art form.  

He got it done and you can't really even tell there was ever a problem.  I still need to paint the patches to match the ceiling but our guy mixed a little paint in with the texture so it doesn't show up that badly in person - although it's more obvious in these pictures with the flash.