House flooding from nowhere?

[dave1949]

Good news progress is being made. At least it's at the point where what needs fixing is known. I guess it's true bad luck comes in threes; truck, AC and heat-sensitive leak. Looks like the rest of 2010 should be a cakewalk for your daughter and SIL. Thanks for the update, these puzzles always turn into learning experiences.
Dave.

 

[kenstrac]

When I was house hunting in the Savannah area I saw allot of houses with a large manifold with individual valves for each circuit,in a few I saw that even with the sink next to DW it was on a circuit by its self,is this required by code for slab built houses built in recent years.
Glad you found the leak!

 

[JB4310]

Wow that was a pretty sneaky leak, did make for a good mystery.

I have seen that type of temperature sensitive leak problem before, where it takes that higher temperature, both creating greater pressure but even more so, thermal expansion/movement, it puts stress on a weak joint or a fitting that is under tension or confined.

Could still have to do with pipes bedded in concrete, if from what I gather they do run down under the slab, but I doubt for the age of the house it would be corroded pipe, maybe something like an elbow or tee embedded in concrete unable to handle stress of confinement.

Just another guess but judging by your sketch and if they hear the leak under the pantry then maybe it's the line the goes to the laundry area, and the laundry had to call for hot water to cause the leak not the kitchen.

One more thing Jim, be very careful taking the insurance companies advice on bringing in the building code inspectors, that's nothing more than passing the buck for them. First off they probably wouldn't come out (since the house is finished and they couldn't see what they normally inspect) unless a permit was pulled even then only to inspect the repair being done.

But if you let them go on a witch hunt and they do find even benign code violations, the home owner will be on the hook, cause the insurance company will not only not pay for the repairs or upgrades, but will in fact limit their liability from future claims arising from a loss due to those "known" issues. In other words if the building inspector writes in the home's file that the plumbing was not up to code, maybe even not something that the building department requires the homeowner to repair, but if you try and file a claim for a plumbing problem, the insurance company could deny it on grounds that you knew it was a problem and didn't fix it.

For the most part home owners ins co's are pretty liberal and MOST people have a pretty good experience with them, but sometimes they can get sleazy, especially with a big ticket claim, and on big claims they do review the files at the local building department.

JB

 

[jinman]

kenstrac: I have never seen such a manifold setup around here unless the house has PEX plumbing. That would be ideal to have plumbing that used a manifold the same way that electricity uses a breaker box. Maybe in the future, that will become the norm, but for now it's still copper under slabs in most new construction here.

JB: I hear exactly what you are saying about a house not up to code and the insurance company shafting the homeowner. As a homeowner, you have to always know that neither those to whom you pay taxes or profits may help you. You always have to look out for your own interest and "play their game." It's a shame, but true.

I guess what happened is the code inspector came out almost immediately and verified that shields were not in place where he could see exposed studs and piping. I don't think he did an excessive inspection, but only reported the missing shields where he could easily see. He also had to approve the E-patch as being up to code. I'm not sure what the final outcome will be for that. This repair could be anywhere from $1200 to $3600 depending on the final location of the leak and if E-Patch is allowed.

Dan: There was definitely some water behind and around the dishwasher although my illustration didn't show it. I just used an filled oval to approximate the location of the flooding. Since the water was running slowly, it seems to have followed the channels made by the tile grout and was mostly toward the office and living area. I think that's because the little bath did not have tile, it had vinyl. The water mostly ran out the baseboard, through the bath and into the entranceway. Of course, once the water was under the carpet and down to the slab, there was nothing to stop it. I just believe the laundry room didn't see flooding because the wall where the leak showed up does not extend into the laundry room and the water found an easier path elsewhere due to being a slow leak.

You are correct that the wall in question has all the drains from the baths above, but that drain and plumbing going to the 2nd floor showed no problems. The water was all coming from below the slab. In the middle of a lot of bad luck, that's probably a bit of good luck.

 

[rox]

One thing I learned which I didn't know, there are companies who specialize just in finding leaks.

 

[jinman]

One thing I learned which I didn't know, there are companies who specialize just in finding leaks.

Rox, it's amazing how you can specialize in something like that and make a good living at it. I guess being a large metro area and also lots of slab homes with sprinkler systems in their lawns makes a company like this very busy.

Happy New Year, Gal. Glad to hear from you.

 

[CurlyDave]

Before the actually do the repair, think something through.

I have seen many cases where it would be far less expensive to abandon the leaking line and run a new one via a different route, i.e. not under the slab. It doesn't always work, but it does often enough to at least give it a thought.

 

[Steve_Miller]

You were right on track with the warm spot on the floor. Just couldn't predict that it would be a somewhat complicated leak though. Hopefully they can fix with minimal damage to the floor.

Steve

 

[tugboat-2]

Hey, hey, . . a shame you can't just pour in a small can of "automotive-radiator-STOP-LEAK" and let it find the holes and plug 'em huh? Of course that might be a tad tooooo easy?

Good thing about this interesting case,..it caused many to give our moth-eaten old "Thinking-Caps",.. a good shake out the window and pull 'em on tight,....then give our head a shake and go to work!!

Frustrating,.. as most bases were pretty well covered right up front,(at least from a Canadian sustained-cold-weather with basement stand-point)...so we had to remove the cap, give the scalp a good scratch, pull the cap back on, and try a different approach.

Well I for one,...got rid of a lot of old cobwebs and gave the brain a good workout. Not good enough,.. but a worthwhile exercise. (One thought was loose tiles around tub and shower and hot water dripping down within the walls and down a bolt/utility hole or crack in the slab?) (Be an interesting list of everybody's best guesses?)

So glad things are working out and apparently on the mend.

I'll say Happy New Year and best of luck with it. ~Best to you (and the Chef) also Rox !!~

CHEERS!
. . tug

 

[JB4310]

I was gonna ask why do you run the pipe under the floors and not just in the walls like electric wiring, but after thinking about it I figured must be impractical, to much work?

Since the leak is now known to be a pipe under the floor, the question seems to be how was it appearing where it was. First thought that comes to mind is where those pipes go thru the floor, both water and drain, there's gonna be a void there, it would be good practice I think to sleeve at least the water lines. Not the sewer pipes but the water lines maybe? that would leave a free path, but also do they run an expansion joint in your house slabs? that would be another breech thru the floor.

Maybe they just saw cut control joints to contain any stress relief cracking, that could be another source. Just picture that slab before the house was built there would be all kinds of thru slab paths for all the drains and pipes etc.

The odd thing is seems many of those paths thru the slab would be in the bath room and inside it's partition walls. water will always end up in the lowest point it has access to and since the bathroom floor would be the lowest point on the first floor, it should have water 3/8" deep, since that's the difference in elevation between the tile floor and the vinyl floor.

So what I'm thinking is it rules out the bathroom as the source of the water pushing up onto the floor but also even if it were coming up inside the walls where the pipes go through the slab, it should flow to the bathroom first or at least equally.

There's still some mystery, but I guess it wont matter as long as the pipe is fixed, I would lean to a conventional repair of the pipe, I know there will be alot of collateral hassles with jack hammering the floor up, but I think the insurance company would cover the additional cost. they are paying for the collateral damage now, which is gonna be more than the repair. doesn't make sense for them to save a little on the repair only to have to pay for future damage if that internal patch fails. Unless they plan on dumping you after they are finished with this claim, they do that some times.

As far as those manifolds go, I've only seen that once, an older house was completely re-plumbed and they used that plastic pex tubing and yeah it acts just like an electric distribution panel where all the different branches can be controlled from one point. And I don't know if I imagined this or someone told me, but I think there is actually an option of a way to protect those branches should a leak occur, almost like a circuit breaker where some kind of simple valve would close if it sensed an uncontrolled flow.

Sorry for the long post, I'm just trying to exercise my brain a little, I do basement waterproofing as well as other lines of restoration. This is normally a slow time, but this whole last half year has been really slow, so I've got to much time on my hands.


JB.