Update on the Flood...

So the plumber finished his task on Friday. Indeed the shower cylinder had blown apart and then it was time to "check the system". Checking the system is an advanced proceedure whereby I walk back to the house, into the basement and turn on the water for 30 seconds. If the water continues to flow then the leak is not fixed and hopefully the plumber has had enough time to find the problem. Truly modern day. So with the faucet fixed I went to check the system and since the water meter did not stop ticking I waited a full 30 seconds before turning it off. When I got back to the garage the plumber told me there was another leak in wall. So he tore a small hole (read 1' by 2') in the garage drywall. Sure enough the pipe had burst at an elbow near the shower and had been emptying into the wall, and subsequently into the garage, the apartment or back down the conduit into the basement. Once that was fixed I went back to the house to check the system again.

Again I was dissappointed when the water meter continued to happily click away for another 30 seconds. I was about to climb the stairs from the basement when I heard the plumber burst through the front door saying in a panicked voice: "Did you turn it off??". When I meekly said "yes", he promptly replied "thank god" and left the house. When I caught up to him he said there were two more leaks and there was now water in the garage.

It seems that the garden hose in the back of the house is on a line of pipe that starts in the wall right by the shower (where the elbow had burst). The pipe comes out of the wall and travels along the ceiling of the garage where it travels down the back wall of the garage, through the wall to a tap on the exterior wall. The two breaks had occurred in the pipe against the ceiling and with the elbow repaired they had gushed. I then made the executive decision to fix that entire line, which included a rupture near the tap that had occured previous to our ownership.

With all of that done the plumber left happily and I was left with the 1'x2' hole in my wall that probably makes the shower a little colder.... but the other news about our apartment will have to wait. The teaser is that someone is moving into the apartment today! No it isn't Michelle or I but someone else... any guesses?


There were a total of 3 new pipe breaks, a destroyed shower cylinder (the thingy behind the tap) and one old pipe break were the water had been turned off.