PLUMBING!!

Well, I had an interesting weekend dealing with an elusive water leak. Saturday afternoon I discovered water seeping into the MBR closet. Luckily I have vinyl laminate flooring that I could pull up. Did that and found that the water was coming in under the outside wall. It wasn't coming in fast and once I took up the flooring it just stayed right under the wall. I went outside and looked and could see water coming down the wall under the siding, right where the water supply comes into the house.

I asked my neighbor across the street for his advice. He told me how to look inside the wall for the leak and loaned me the little knife you use to cut sheetrock. I cut in several places, found what I assumed was the water pipe and couldn't find the leak. I thought the water may be coming from the pipe the previous owner had added to take the water to a faucet in the back yard.

On Sunday I decided to eliminate the extra pipe and, in trying to take it all apart I accidentally split a copper pipe. (Lesson learned - always use two wrenches when dealing with copper pipe, one to turn the attachment and one to hold the main pipe since copper is so soft.) My neighbor said it would take soddering to fix it so I called the plumber. He was able to fix that so I could turn the water back on. I thought the original leak was taken care of since no water had leaked in Sunday afternoon. Well, later Sunday evening, after the water had been turned back on and the plumber was long gone, the seepage was back.

I called the plumber Monday morning (I should say plumbing company) and they send out someone very promptly. One thing I found was that I had been checking the wrong pipe! Water rarely leaks from the gas pipe. lol Anyway, he came in, cut away more sheetrock and found where the water was seeping from a soddered joint at the elbow where the pipe turned down to go through the slab. It was a tight space to use a blow torch, but he got it fixed without burning down the house. He did singe a bit of the inside of the siding, but nothing major. A couple of tries with the sodder and a good whack with the wrench resulted in a fix.

Now I will be learning how to patch drywall!! Since that is one of the things my across the street neighbor does for a living, I'm sure I'll be doing it right. For the duration I have a piece of plywood covering the opening to keep the cold air and bugs out and the cats in (they can crawl inside the wall).

I'm just so pleased that this was finally fixed. It was a tiny leak - it didn't even move the water meter - but it could have caused lots of damage. In fact, I was so energized that I sorted out and bagged up some shoes to go to the charity shop and then vacuumed and mopped the bedroom floor, wiped down the walls, windowsills, and furniture. All I need to do to finish is move the bed and clean behind and under it. Wow!!

Anyway, this has been a learning experience and now I know how to tell the difference between water and gas pipes! (Water is smaller copper, gas is bigger black pipe)

LEVELING THE FOUNDATION - PART 4 (FINAL)

I can't tell you how amazing it was to see the cracks close up and the doors work properly after the foundation leveling. In the master bedroom I hadn't been able to close the closet door for a long, long time. The best I could do was to slam it as hard as I could to lodge it in the space and keep the cats out. The frame around the door was actually slipping off the sheetrock and the crack was making its way across the wall. There was such a gap between the frame and the door on entry to the master bedroom, that I had to shim out the strike plate with cardboard, nuts and washers just to keep the door latched. For the hall bath there was the same problem as the closet door. Also in the hall, the doors to the A/C unit and the hot water heater would open at will. There was a space under the wall between the garage and the house that got to be at least 1" and it ran from the master bedroom, thru the laundry area and into the kitchen. The walls above the door to the garage and the entry from the dining area to the kitchen were separating from the ceiling. The front door was sticking and there were assorted cracks everywhere.

In the small amount of time that it took to actually jack up the foundation, the vast marjority of those problems either disappeared or diminished. You have to see it so I'm posting some before and after pics. I hope that helps you to see what a difference this dusty, dirty, noisy process made.

BEFORE

Above the door from the kitchen to the garage. See the space at the top and the crack from the corner of the door?

This is the door from the dining area to the kitchen seen from the dining area side.

This is the infamous closet door. That's as closed as it would get. Look at the crack - there was a matching one on the other side and you could see the light through it.

AFTER

Look, ma!! No more space above the wall!

The most amazing transformation of all - the closet door!

There are still a lot of cracks to patch, but they are closed cracks. I've been told to wait about 60 days to do any patching which is fine with me. It will be cool weather and much better for patching and painting.

I hope everyone has learned something about foundation problems in Houston and the great work that can be done to fix them.

LEVELING THE FOUNDATION - PART 2

Ok, I'm back for Part 2. The first thing the crew leader did was to review what the other guy had proposed. Then I showed him all the cracks and gaps and doors. He took lots of measurements with a neat little gadget that shows how much difference there is in elevation for the different areas of the house. After much looking and measuring, a decision was made to put three piers on the kitchen through 2 holes, the same in my bedroom with one in the hall. They also needed an outside pier, just past the front door. Three piers under the wall between the garage and house needed to be shimmed up, too. One of the "big guys" with the company also came by and agreed with the proposed work. He also kept saying that the house was in bad shape. I wanted to tell him to can it, but I also wanted a good job done, so I kept my mouth shut.

The first thing they have to do to dig the holes is to jackhammer away the concrete. That was the most fun (not) of the whole deal. Luckily the workers knew what they were doing and got the job done pretty quickly. And there wasn't nearly as much dust generated as I had expected. I had put a new filter in the A/C and had to change it again the next day when they were finished. Wow!

After opening up the concrete, they have to dig the holes by hand. Yes, by hand!!! And once they got past the top layer, the soil was very hard and it took them a long, long time to get it all dug out. Of course on a couple of the holes they had to go in two directions for the two piers. They did get a couple of other crews out there late in the day, but it was too crowded for them to help out much.

So the day ended with deep holes in the kitchen, bedroom and hall that they covered with big pieces of plywood so I wouldn't fall into one and break my leg as I was told another customer had done.

This is in the kitchen where they are breaking up the concrete.

This is looking down the hall into the bedroom .

This is in the kitchen where they've started digging the dirt out.

This is in the bedroom showing one of the plywood sheets they use to cover the holes.

You can see in the pictures that they covered the walls and cabinets with brown paper to protect them. It seemed to work as the only mishap was a bit of mud on the dryer where they were coming in and out of the door from the kitchen to the garage. No holes in the wall, no dings on the doors. And it was tight with those wheelbarrows!! And they covered the kitchen floor with heavy plastic sheets and only cut out where they needed to dig.

Tomorrow - the real work. I'll post pictures of the workers down in those holes driving the piers. Really cool!

LEVELING THE FOUNDATION - PART 1

Ok, I took 30 some odd pictures of the process of leveling my foundation so I guess I'd better get busy posting them and explaining the process to those of you who are not familiar with it. Believe me, I certainly learned a lot over the two days it took to get my house back on the level.

First I have to explain that the soil in the Houston area moves around a lot. If we were on rock, we would have earthquakes. We also have soil that swells when it gets wet and shrinks when it's hot and dry. The last is what happened to my house. Oh, and almost everyone here has a slab foundation. A few years ago, piers were placed around the front 3/4 of my house as the foundation was beginning to tilt forward. Because of the extreme dry and hot weather we've had this summer, the soil under the middle of the house began to shrink and the middle of my house began to sink. There was as much as a 4" difference in elevation between the highest and lowest part of my house. Yeah! The caused cracks in the sheetrock. doors that wouldn't close all the way or wouldn't stay closed. The worst part was the gap between the bottom of the wall and the floor in some places and the same gap between the top of the wall and the ceiling in others.

Today I'm posting some pictures of some of the problem areas.

Bedroom closet door - you could see the light from the closet through the crack which was on both sides of the wall! And that was as closed as the door would get.

Door from dining room into kitchen - on the other side there was a gap between the top of the wall and the ceiling.

Wall between kitchen and garage - notice gap at top of wall and cracks around door.

Tomorrow I'll post pictures of the beginning of the process. Please let me know if you have any questions.

THE CALM AFTER THE STORM

Today is Day 2 of "after the work." Things are beginning to get back to normal, whatever that is. I walked to the grocery store yesterday for some things to tide me over until I can drive again. Despite it being a bit warm, it was a nice walk. The frozen items in my handmade grocery tote that I carried over one shoulder kept me cool on the return trip.

I've done a once-over with the vacuum and replaced some of the flooring. The crew was able to get the hall flooring up in one big piece. The bedroom, however, will be like a jigsaw puzzle. I've done a few small repairs. One baseboard in the bedroom got popped off when some debris that was under the wall got pushed out. That's been fixed. I also got the folding door between the kitchen and dining room back on track. Also got one strike plate reset, but have a couple more to do. Still lots of stuff to do like caulking and patching, but that needs to wait about 60 days for everything to settle. No problem!!! Actually, once I get the flooring relaid in the bedroom, the only real evidence of the work will be the two concrete patches in the kitchen surrounded by neatly cut out linoleum. Maybe the look will catch on with the HGTV set?

I'll be working on pictures today and hope to start posting them by tomorrow with a full documentation of the process. Meanwhile, I want to thank all those who sent messages of support while I was enduring this process. It really means a lot to me to know that my cyberfriends are there for me.