Burst Pipe in Studio

On Saturday night, we had a close call. Both floods and fires are among a stitcher's worst nightmares. But looking back now, I know how lucky we were.

I was sitting in my studio, stitching on a block. I heard some water running, and thought DH had just flushed a toilet upstairs. He came downstairs and the water kept running. And running. After a few minutes, I called to him and we both went upstairs and checked the bathrooms. Everything upstairs was quiet - no toilets or faucets running. When we came downstairs, however, the sound was very clear AND the carpet near the east wall in my studio, which is situated between the doors to the laundry room and to the bathroom, was wet.

Panic!

There was no water running in the laundry room or downstairs bathroom, but we could now feel it in the wall. Bruce ran and shut off the main water valve and the sound stopped. OK, that's good. Now to find the leak. We moved away my bookcase full of cotton fabrics that stood along that wall. Next, we tore off the paneling, ceiling molding and began cutting into the sheetrock. We finally saw a water pipe up near the ceiling.


What we found was a copper pipe that had apparently been nicked many years ago when the basement was finished (the house is 45 years old, but the original basement finish may be 10 years newer than that). It appears that a nail in the crown molding grazed - didn't pierce, just grazed - the pipe. However, over the years it corroded. It had been leaking for awhile, but finally burst last night. THANK GOODNESS WE WERE HOME AND RIGHT THERE WHEN IT HAPPENED!

We ended up tearing out the entire panel of sheetrock between the doors.

Bruce went to the hardware store and bought a clamp as a temporary measure until we can call a plumber on Monday. As an extra precaution we shut off the water when we went to bed.

Now we'll pay for a plumber, get the wall sheetrocked - and while we're sheetrocking, we might as well fix the ceiling in the laundry room and take the vent out of the hall ceiling upstairs (since we've had central air for years) and have that sheetrocked too.

So tomorrow I'll find temporary storage for all the fabrics that had to be moved. And then I get to dust every little inch of my studio to remove the settled sheetrock dust. And cross my fingers that we can get a plumber in ASAP.

As Gilda Radner used to say, "It's always something!"