Have had a number of handy adventures since the last post but the latest is worth commenting on. After spending a month in Chandler Arizona helping Ryan and Erin with the birth of her daughter/my granddaughter, Lily Belle Lovrien (great name!) I came home to a dripping kitchen ceiling. Since the kitchen is on the first floor something on the second was not right.

Hmmm, maybe two story homes are not as practical as the one story Arizona home I just left. We had a previous problem with a kitchen ceiling leak fifteen years ago when the guest bathtub caulking failed. Later, we had two separate ceiling leaks in the downstairs den, both involving pinholes in the copper pipes exactly where an electrical wire crossed and touched the pipe. I have no idea if the electricity affected the pipe but I’m suspicious.

On the first mid-pipe pinhole leak I called a plumber. On the second, to save money, I wrapped the pipe with self-fusing silicone tape. Worked well and has never leaked since. I know this because I was too paranoid (and lazy) to patch the drywall and can look anytime I want.

Now, I’m the kind of guy that hates to mess up a wall or a ceiling. I don’t like putting a nail into a wall to hang a picture because it leaves a hole. Well, adversity won out and I got out the drywall saw and started cutting open the ceiling where the water was slowly dripping. Might as well since it was all stained.

Got a good view, shined the light in the hole and yep, the hole was directly under the guest bathtub plumbing … but nothing was wet.

Ok, maybe the water was coming from a little further away. Nope, Maybe a little further. Well, only after cutting away a long rectangle did the flashlight show the leak two feet away.

Ok, cut another hole in the ceiling and found the water coming from a tee, not a mid-pipe leak which the tape would easily fix.

What now?

I discovered the utility of Epoxy for many recent home repairs and the company JB makes Waterweld. Hey, this stuff can fix anything, even hardens under water! Slap this stuff on and we are good to go!!!

Well, I confidently cut a corner. Since the drip was only every 8 to 10 seconds, there was very little water pressure. I molded the epoxy over the pipe, held tight but it kept leaking around. Wrapped it with electrical tape to squeeze harder. Still leaking. Maybe once it hardened the leak would stop.

Nope.

Hours later, Morgan and I scraped the hardening epoxy off with a box cutter. The leak seemed worse. Giving up on the epoxy and tape ideas, I called Mr.-Fixit, Jeff, who kindly offered to spend the day showing me the proper repair. Long story short, Jeff cut the pipe, desoldered the joint, and fit a new pipe with a connector into the tee. Problem solved, well, the pipe at least. The kitchen ceiling is another issue.

So where did I cut the corner? Before the second repair, we did what I should have done with the first repair … cut off the water at the street, turned on all the taps upstairs and the sink downstairs to drain all water from the lines. The epoxy may have worked with zero water pressure and a completely dry pipe … maybe. I’m not so sure.

So next on my learning list is a day in the garage with scrap copper pipe learning how to solder.

When you have a hammer everything looks like a nail. When you have epoxy everything looks repairable.

Oh yeah, this what the pipe looked like on the inside. Explains why I have bottled water delivered to the house!