7 minute read

BE READY, PIPES CAN BURST IN ANY HOUSE

from The Real Estate Book, Lake Area Issue #5: Lake Oconee, Lake Sinclair and Surrounding Areas

by The Real Estate Book, Lake Area - Lake Oconee, Lake Sinclair GA

from The Real Estate Book, Lake Area Issue #5: Lake Oconee, Lake Sinclair and Surrounding Areas, page 20

Article from: The Real Estate Book, Lake Area Issue #5: Lake Oconee, Lake Sinclair and Surrounding Areas

SPRING PROJECTS TO HELP YOUR H...

the home three years before, and Dr. Larsen and his wife trusted me. Little did they know, I had no clue how to build the three simple walls needed for the small new bathroom.

By Tim Carter

You might think that everything is rainbows and unicorns at my house. After all, I'm a home improvement expert. What could go wrong?

Do you want to build a new wall inside your home?

I survived with the help of a few phone calls to my boss. It was a humbling experience as I discovered you don't know what

You can't always do this in an existing home, especially if the ceilings in the room are finished with drywall or plaster. As you tilt the wall up, it binds against the ceiling. If you're challenged by a finished ceiling, you'll most likely have to install your top and bottom plates, making sure the plates are you don't know. Keep in mind this was decades before the Internet and YouTube. You have no idea what an advantage you now have when you have to educate yourself about how to repair and build things around your home. Count your blessings! immediately? Based on the email I receive from homeowners like you, qualified help is getting harder and harder to find at a moment’s notice. Are you able to make emergency repairs to your water lines yourself? My guess is you have no idea how to solder copper water lines.

Answer: the exact same things that go wrong without warning at your home.

Perhaps you're trying to create a new small space for a home office or hobby room, or maybe you have a bigger appetite and are transforming a dank basement into a finished living space. But you have no idea where to start. I've been there. I've experienced your anxiety.

Several nights ago, a disaster unfolded in my home in the middle of the night. It actually started hours before, but my wife didn’t alert me to a tiny clue she had felt earlier in the day. As it turns out, a mouse gnawed at a plastic PEX water line that was running from the basement up to a second-floor bathroom. The pipe passed through an oversized hole created by the plumber more than 20 years ago. Had the plumber installed caulk to fill the hole, I’d not be typing this.

Every now and then it's interesting to go back in time. I clearly remember having to build my first partition wall inside a house. I was a soaking wet-behind-theears carpenter working for a small remodeling company. One of my college professors, Dr. Larsen, had asked me to install a half bathroom in his home. I had no idea what to do, so I told him that my boss could do the job.

Even though I couldn’t see the leak, I deduced that the water had to be leaking above the master bedroom. The only water above that room was a second-floor bathroom. I immediately turned off the cold and hot-water valves on the manifold in the boiler room, stopping all water from going to that room. By then the damage was done. I know It could have been so much worse.

As I often remind readers, I didn’t build the house I currently live in. Had I done so, I can assure you no mice would be inside, and even if they did somehow sneak in through an open garage door, they’d not be able to travel through the walls and ceilings at will as they currently do. The builder of my home was a dunce. I was only supposed to live in this transitional house for two years, but now I’m going on year 14. That’s a story for another column.

First and foremost, you need to know how to shut off the water in your home in case you have a leak. Just knowing the location of the valve is not good enough.

Once the simple plans were drawn and the contract signed, I was sent to my professor's house to start the job. I had painted the outside of plumb in the same plane. You'll then cut each wall stud to fit snugly between the plates and toenail them in place. Drill angled pilot holes in the ends of the wall studs for the nails. Use no less than 3-inch-long 16d sinker nails to connect the wall studs to the plates.

The mischievous rodent ended up nibbling through the plastic pipe just enough to create a silent leak that reacted to gravity. Water soon ponded under the hardwood floor in our bedroom, causing it to swell. My lovely wife felt a new bump in the floor as she walked on the oriental rug that covers the floor but didn’t think too much about it.

Hours later, in the middle of the night, I had a nature call to the bathroom and felt a much larger hump in the floor that had never been there before. But in my sleep-walking state, I noticed it but crawled back under the covers thinking I’d inspect later to see what toy the cats might have shoved under the edge of the carpet. When I woke up at dawn, I immediately saw we had a serious problem. By then, the water had traveled to a basement bedroom, ruining the ceiling and laminate floor down there.

The good news is you don’t need to know how to solder copper. Or, if you have PEX tubing like me, you don’t need to have special tools for the most part to stop a slow or catastrophic leak.

Building a new interior wall in an existing house can be much different from doing it on a new home job site. When we carpenters build a wall for a new home, we typically build it flat on the floor. Once all the studs are nailed to the bottom and top plates, we tilt the wall up and secure it so it doesn't fall over.

What are the lessons here?

First and foremost, you need to know how to shut off the water in your home in case you have a leak. Just knowing the location of the valve is not good enough. When was the last time it was exercised? I’ve been a master plumber since 1981, and I can tell you that valves need to be exercised just like your body. You need to turn them on and off at least twice a year. You may discover that when you go to turn a valve off, it doesn’t turn or you break the valve.

In our case, my wife and I were lucky that we didn't lose any irreplaceable or sentimental items. Will you be so lucky? Do you know where the hidden water lines are in your home? Where do they run across ceilings? If a water leak happens, what will get wet below?

Now is the time to move family treasures in your home to new locations where water, heat or sunlight will not damage them. Think about placing extremely valuable things in waterproof containers.

What happens if you can’t get a plumber to come to your rescue

If there is no ceiling, you can tilt the wall up so long as you orient the wall in the same direction as the floor joists above. You simply make sure the top of the wall rises up in between two parallel floor joists. Once the wall is vertical, you can then slide it into position under

Should you have a catastrophic full-pressure leak, you can cut the copper pipe, slide on an open ball valve and use a press tool to crimp the valve onto the copper tubing. It takes seconds. Once it's crimped, you turn the valve handle and the water stops flowing. The only issue is you have to have the valve on hand and you need the special, expensive crimping tool. They can be rented, but hundreds or thousands of gallons of water could have flooded your home before you get back from the tool-rental business.

My recommendation your new it at your rough opening measurements Measure of the where attached the door. measurement. of your much the frame the door. be trimming when you you want between the top You height just one-quarter the factory Trust me, install over drywall gap between and the ©2021 Tim Content Agency,

Believe it or not, there’s an even easier way to repair leaking copper, PEX, PE-RT, and CPVC water lines. You can cut the pipe, remove any burrs and push onto the end of the pipe pushto-connect fittings. My go-to choice is TotalFit ones made by Uponor. I have Uponor PEX in my home. If you can put the cap back on a Sharpie permanent marker, you can install these magic push-to-connect fittings.

It’s key for you to have an assortment of them on hand as well as the correct tool to cut the pipe cleanly. You might also get the special inexpensive deburring tool. Once you see how easy it is to make an emergency repair, you’ll sleep like a baby.

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