Saturday, I was going to investigate a job I had in mind. I wanted to rework the connection for the water line for the refrigerator. The access was rather "rigged" and was located in a closet behind a panel. When I cleared out the closet I noticed wetness. When I took the panel off, there was a drip at one of the fittings, and a split in one of the lines. It was spewing out water. I got a towel and covered the spew and went to shut off the supply line. Next, I called a plumber. I called the guy that did our water heater. He came out and replaced the bad parts. This polybutylene is about 35 years old and is starting to fail throughout the neighborhood. So, I made an appointment with him to come back Thursday and replace all the polybutylene in the house.
Here is the finished job. The new material is what is called PEX. PEX tubing is made from crosslinked HDPE (high density polyethylene) polymer. It has been used in Europe since 1970 and was introduced to the US in 1980s. It has several advantages over metal pipe (copper, iron, lead) or rigid plastic pipe (PVC, CPVC, ABS) systems. It is flexible, resistant to scale and chlorine, doesn't corrode or develop pinholes, is faster to install than metal or rigid plastic, and has fewer connections and fittings.
Now we are working with insurance and Servicemaster to abate the water/mold problems.
Wednesday, September 10
The adjuster (Foremost, a division of Farmers) and Servicemaster came today. Servicemaster has removed all damaged materials and contained the area. They have put in air scrubbers and a dehumidifier. These all need to run for 3-5 days. Then we will be able to rebuild. Looks like we will be getting a new floor for the kitchen/laundry room area, too.
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| removing damaged wall board |
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| refrigerator relocated to in front of stove |
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| microwave relocated to sink counter |
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| The cabinets were sealed with tape and the room was sealed off to create a negative pressure area. |
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| A little moisture in the corner of the study. Closet sealed off to create a negative pressure area. |
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| Heater, air blower, dehumidifiers in closet. |
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| Drying time 3-5 days. |
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| This is the left wall in the closet. The old plumbing has been
removed, and they installed a new line for the ice maker.
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| This is the door wall. I removed all the drywall and put in new. |
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| That is the back side of the ice maker box. |
Today the installers arrived to install our new kitchen floor. I had moved out the washer, dryer, stove, and refrigerator the night before. We decided to put it on the existing floor. They mixed up a special mix and spread it over the floor to fill in any indentations and make it smooth.
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| The are bringing in the flooring and laying it out
on one end of the kitchen.
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| They make sure that it fits this half of the kitchen. |
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They rolled it back and applied adhesive and let it dry.
They did it again for the back half.
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The floor is done, I installed base, and moved
all the appliances back in.
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| Marcia did an excellent job picking out the flooring. |
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The installers did an excellent job installing.
It took them about 3 hours. I did an excellent
job installing the base.
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I finished the closet. I painted the walls and the
ceiling. Made a new shelf and hanger. I used left
over vynl for the floor, put down new shoe mold
and a transition.
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We put all the stuff back in the closet thus
reclaiming our office room. It is nice to have
everything back to normal.
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Just inside the closet is where I keep my ready tools. Tools
I can get to without having to go outside or get into my tool
box.
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1 comment:
It's good that you were able to detect the problem before it got worse, although you still had to change the floors and walls. At least with this new system, you're confident that there won't be any plumbing problems in the near future. Take care!
Laverne Knight @ Midland Mechanical
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