The Dreaded Pipe Burst

After purchasing our humble duplex and spending significant $$ on new kitchens and new bathrooms, we finally moved into our new home.  Everything went well enough for the first few months.  As first time home-owners, we certainly had our share of annoying minor fixes.  I particularly remember wasting a frustratingly silly amount of time on constructing a small piece of fence on part of our porch.  None of the issues were, however, particularly threatening until…

We noticed after returning from Christmas vacation (one week with my family, one week with my wife’s family in Minnesota and western Kentucky, respectively) that the shower in the upstairs unit had ceased working.  I could turn the handle, but not so much as a trickle of water.  It was disconcerting that the new shower would break so soon.  We called the plumber who worked on our bathroom and asked him to take a look at it.  A few days passed and we were still waiting impatiently, as our first tenants were set to move into the upstairs unit the next week.  Then came the weather warning.  A wind chill of -20 degrees F was expected.  We were also worried that the pipes had frozen.  However, the piping was in an interior wall, making that scenario seem unlikely.  My wife, Courtney, suggested that we leave the faucets running at night, which can help prevent frozen pipes…  Idiot that I am, I persuaded her that we should just turn up the heat in the unit.

The next day Courtney was upstairs checking on the unit and waiting for the plumber.  I received a worried phone call at work informing me that now none of the faucets upstairs were working and the plumber was later than expected and hadn’t called.  Thirty minutes later Courtney heard the pipes burst.

A hot water line burst in the upstairs unit, meaning that it was cascading down into our unit through the light fixtures in the bathroom and also flooding the laundry room basement.  Fortunately, after a little scrambling she located and shut off the main water supply to the house.  By the time I arrived home, expecting two ruined kitchens and a ruined bathroom, the only water that remained was draining in the basement.  

We were very, very, very lucky that there was no lasting damage.  If this had happened anytime during the prior two weeks while we were traveling for Christmas and the duplex was empty, the water would have run until the water company shut it off for excessive usage.  It would definitely have ruined the kitchen and bathroom in our lower unit.  It might have also destroyed one wall of the upstairs kitchen.

For a first time homeowner, having a pipe burst is a terrifying experience.  During the next month my wife would have nightmares about waterfalls coming down through our bathroom ceiling.  Courtney would wake up around midnight and ask me to check the faucets.  Since we didn’t have a tenant yet, I would occasionally go upstairs and test the faucets and feel the temperature of the wall where the incident occurred.

Up next, the cause and how we fixed it.

Home Warranties and Water Heaters

When you purchase a property there is that minor question of the home warranty.  You wonder, “Is it really worth it?”  We would like to share a few experiences and some advice for helping you make up your mind.

Our first property (and home) was a humble little duplex.

Home, Sweet, Home

We were slightly younger and much dumber and we decided to purchase the home warranty mainly because the realtor did an excellent job selling it.  It used to be the case that many realtors would receive commissions for selling home warranties but that is pretty rare now.  Our realtor did not receive a commission, but the home warranty company was affiliated with the realty broker.

 

Anyway fast-forward about 7 months to winter and a week of really cold weather: Horror of horrors, a pipe bursts in the upstairs unit. We were very, very, very lucky and nothing was damaged.  We called up our plumber and he was able to cut a hole in the wall and fixed it the same day.  Since the bill was relatively small, $250, we wrote him a check that day and decided to see what we could get reimbursed for by the home warranty company later.  That reimbursement didn’t quite go as planned - we later found out that our home warranty would not cover the repairs.  The home warranty company (usually) requires that you use the plumbers and repairmen they specify. They try to reduce fraud by relying on the estimates and work of servicemen and companies they know.

A couple weeks later, our tenants in the upstairs units complained about running out of hot water.  We thought the temperature just wasn’t hot enough on the hot water heater, so we turned it up and thought the problem was solved… until we got the same complaint again.  After opening a claim under the home warranty, a plumber came to our house the next morning and diagnosed the problem. Here is what a corroding water heater (ours) looks like:

We should've have know this was trouble.

The plumber told us there was no point in fixing such an old hot water heater and he could replace it the next day. Unfortunately, there were some items not covered under the home warranty that were required for newer code specifications, including an overflow vessel. The gas lines to the water heater had been sealed with spray-paint, and the whole setup looked sketchy.

Not the best setup in the world

Still, we received a new 40-gallon gas water heater for a $100 deductible and $285 of non-covered expenses, all in all pretty good deal.

Much better!