Lemme tell you, our bathroom’s wallpaper wasn’t its only problem-to-be-remedied recently. So brace yourself while we weave a little plumbing tale that spanned over the last few weeks (in fact it just wrapped up a few days ago). You know how we solemnly swear to share the good, the bad, and the ugly? Well, this one can be filed under “the bad” and “the ugly” with a side of “the gross.” So for everyone’s sake, we’ll leave out the graphic pictures.
During the process of buying this house we noticed a very small, dried out water stain on the ceiling in the living room, right below where the bathroom was. We and the inspector concluded it was likely from a toilet overflow from long ago, since the stain was only about 3″ wide and long dried up. So we weren’t too alarmed and just figured it was solved decades ago, so a little primer and ceiling paint were all that it needed. We never even photographed it, but here’s a hint as to where it was.
Then this fall, the toilet started to act up. Namely in that it would occasionally clog (this is your first hint to put down your breakfast) and when we attempted to plunge it, well, it would back-up into the shower. If that first hint didn’t work, something tells me you’re putting your breakfast down right about now.
Yeah, it was gross. And since a certain half of this relationship was already queasy from growing a tiny human, I was the only one on duty (a little pun to lighten the mood). Usually a bit more plunging and maybe a bit of snaking would fix the issue. I say “usually” because this happened more than once. And before you start judging our gastrointestinal prowess, I should note that this sort of back-up sometimes happened when the toilet wasn’t even involved – maybe after a shower or after I shaved in the sink. We googled for answers and contemplated calling in a pro, but the “incidents” were few and far enough between that we figured we could hold out ’til we remodeled the room.
But last month came the back-up that plunging could not conquer.
***PHOTO OMITTED TO PROTECT YOUR DELICATE RETINAS***
And in all of my furious plunging, I managed to create a new water stain in the ceiling below. I’d later learn that all the pressure of such vigorous plunging had compromised the wax ring and water started leaking again. That was our cue to call in a pro. He removed the toilet, ran an 150 foot snake and dislodged what he concluded was “years worth of paper build-up” way down in our pipes somewhere. Phew! Problem solved.
Except it wasn’t. Fast forward another week and the shower starts to back-up again. In fact, it happens as I’m using the tub to fill up the steamer during may latest wallpaper removal spree. So not only was that process miserable on its own, I was doing it with a less than fresh-looking (and smelling) shower nearby. Not to mention that we’re both beyond frustrated that our first call to the plumber didn’t solve the problem. So yeah, clearly the picture below was taken before the back-up happened. Just look at me all footloose and fancy free.
Remember when I called this post-wallpapered look: “gas station bathroom.” I was really thinking it was more reminiscent of that scene in Trainspotting. Yeah, you know the one. And if you don’t, well, I highly suggest that you NOT google it right now. Okay, maybe our bathroom wasn’t that bad. But it was bad enough that I was embarrassed that this was the state the plumbers would see it in.
Then again, things didn’t get much prettier once they arrived. Now that I think about it, I guess they’ve pretty much seen it all.
The plumbing company sent a different guy this time and, after explaining the series of events, he had a pretty solid theory. But it meant cutting into our ceiling to confirm it. Welcome to our crash course in two-story home issues. Kinda made us miss the days where virtually everything was visible from a crawl space or attic.
His hunch was correct. All of the bathroom plumbing was configured wrong. And it had been for 30+ years since they built this house. A key element – the slope of the main drain pipe – was incorrect. So rather than having gravity to help water leave the vicinity, it was actually sloped uphill – so water and sewage that should have been flushed down and out of the house would collect and pool and eventually back-up into the lowest opening in that bathroom (i.e. the shower). In the words of Clara: yuckaroo.
The only solution was to cut a bigger hole in the ceiling and have the experts replace all the plumbing. It even meant cutting out one of the load-bearing joists and reinforcing it with a new one so the new pipes could be configured at the right angle, so it was nothing that we dared to attempt ourselves.
Did we like having our house torn apart? No. But we were pretty relieved that the root of the problem was finally getting fixed. And I’ll admit that we were pretty entertained by the view through the floor.
It only took them a day to complete the task (they came back a few days after their initial diagnosis to get it done) along with a somewhat painful $650 check, but we were relieved that this hidden-behind-the-walls issue that had plagued this house for over three decades was finally solved. Which meant we could finally get back to our little bathroom update. And hey, while the toilet was removed, we were able to strip that small swatch of wallpaper that had been hiding behind the bowl, so that was kind of funny (very marginally at the time, but more so now).
But we were still left with that gaping hole in the living room ceiling well after the bathroom was trimmed out and painted.
We went back and forth about drywalling it ourselves – which basically involves mudding, taping, sanding, re-mudding, and re-sanding. Smooth ceilings are especially tricky (imperfections are a lot more visible up there) and we knew any remaining dents or seams would have bugged us forever, so we finally just pulled the trigger and called a highly recommended local drywall guy.
He fixed it flawlessly in a few hours for around $100, and was also very nice (he said Sherry looked like Topanga from Boy Meets World, which pretty much made our day). So now all we’ve got to do is prime and paint it.
Update: A few folks have asked if our home warranty would have covered this issue (that actually ran out before this fiasco) but it most likely would not, since this was an “existing condition” (the plumbing didn’t break after we moved in, it was configured this way for 30 years, so that’s not something typically covered by a home warranty).
These unplanned homeowner curveballs never feel good (especially when we’d rather be spending that money on fun updates that we can actually see and enjoy) but it’s nice to have things all put back together again. The irony is that we have another “oh the joys of home ownership” story unfolding (it’s still halfway-solved, so we’ll wait for the full resolution before crying on your shoulder). Please tell us we’re not the only ones. Regale us with some of your tales of woe in the plumbing/heating/other house systems arenas. We’re all in this together. Right?
Psst- The “Volume Two” part of this post’s title is thanks to this original leak lesson that we dealt with a few years ago at our last house. Best thing about that one is that it was something we could solve ourselves (read: zero benjamins).
Lisa@Double Door Ranch says
Ugh!!! What a nightmare! But what a hysterical John/lack of John/Burger photo!
Our water heater leaked a couple years ago and we didn’t realize how bad untilI started seeing mold on the walls. Turns out it also seeped below our old ceramic tile and destroyed the floorboards underneath. I outlined my horror in this post: http://doubledoorranch.com/2013/10/02/hardwood-the-easy-way/
And upon my discovery of said mold… please pardon my nsfw language.
http://instagram.com/p/aV_3_0Fa0Q/
Katie says
Hey John & Sherry, Seeing this post made me think of the things that have happened since we moved in our “new” 30 year old home in March of 2013. New water heater (partially covered by warranty), removal of dead raccoon from under the porch, toilet leak which lead to mold discovery and partial sub-floor replacement, shower leaking to the entry foyer area, replacement of entire first floor sub-floor due to water issues. Glad to know I’m not the only one with older house issues;)
Debbie C says
Ugh, so relieved (no pun intended) that your plumbing issue is over! But I have to say I love that picture of Burger looking down at John through the hole in the floor. I say frame it and hang it. ;D
YoungHouseLove says
Embrace the chaos of DIY disasters as art! Haha!
xo
s
Marci says
A not-so-gross toilet story:
My husband stores his toiletries on the back of the toilet in his man cave bathroom in the basement. I accidentally hit his deoderant with my elbow as I was flushing and it ended up going down and clogging the toilet. No amount of plunging would budge it.
Husband in frustration: how could this happen?
Me in frustration: because you put your stuff on the back of the toilet. Who does that?
Husband: They’re called *toiletries*, aren’t they?
Anyway, my brother came over and showed us how to remove the toilet, deal with the wax ring and caulk. (Husband still stores toiletries on toilet, but I don’t use that bathroom.)
Leah says
Our plumbing woe is related to our tub. Our tub leaks prodigiously, as in we’re filling an ice cream bucket in an hour. The maintenance guy for our place came over to put in a new cartridge, and the leak got even worse. So, it’s currently a battle to get him back and try again. Thankfully, we don’t pay for the water, but I still feel awful about the waste. We are using some of the water to refill our humidifier, but most goes down the drain.
Bailey says
We purchased our first home about a year and a half ago. Within a week, every toilet and shower was backing up. Apparently, there were roots in our pipes. It was super expensive, but since we live in a disclosure state and it was obviously something the previous owners had to know about (since it started within a week) we threatened legal action and the sellers coughed up the cash.
Six months later, we were working on a bathroom renovation and found severe termite damage and indisputable proof that the sellers knew about the damage. Another item that they paid for.
Within a week of owning our first home, the glowy “Yay, we’re homeowners!” had worn off. Which is really sad!
YoungHouseLove says
Oh man, that’s totally sad! I hope the excitement comes back when you get to do something fun instead of annoying maintenance tuff.
xo
s
Leigh Anne says
Oh, listen while I sing you the song of our Fall/Winter in good ole Charley West (Charleston, WV in case you didn’t know ;-). You’ve never heard such a tale of water and plumbing!!
Our kitchen sink clogged as we we were about to leave our three kids with a sitter for a weekend while we attended a good friend’s wedding, where my husband was to be the best man. We couldn’t really ditch that gig ;-) After much discussion and trying unsuccessfully to unclog the sink we decided to go anyway. Our babysitter was especially awesome and was fine not having a kitchen sink to use. Once we got home from our weekend my husband worked for HOURS trying to unclog the sink. He finally got it!! We refused to pay a plumber. It’s hard spending money on those things!
Speaking of things being clogged, hop along to the middle of December when my 4 yr old starts doubling over in pain. We brought her to her Peds and they said nothing was wrong, that maybe she just had a mild stomach virus. Okay, fine. Two days later she is still doubling over in pain. We called the Peds office and they insisted we bring her to the ER. After many tests and concern that she had a kidney stone, turns out she was just really, extremely backed up. Yup, she was clogged. Poor girl.
Fast forward to January 8th, when we find out that we have a comprehensive ban on ALL WATER USE! Our county plus 8 other counties! Turns out a tank form let 10,000 gallons of chemical leak into the Elk River one mile upstream from our Water Company’s intake! Five days of no in home water use, including not doing laundry, dishes, cleaning, showering, drinking. You get the picture. There’s a lot more to that story but I’ll leave it there since this is already too long for a comment.
On the same day as the leak/water ban happened I notice a water leak outside next to our house. I called the water company to report it. Nothing. Called the next day to get an update. Nothing. Finally, I called again the day before yesterday and had to go all Madea on their butts to get them out here. At this point there had been a nice skating rink on my driveway and front porch for a month. They finally came out and made the entire situation 100 times worse before fixing the original leak. Now we have damage to our retaining wall, driveway, front porch and sidewalk. And possibly to the side if our house that is underground.
Add in a Polar Vortex and an Artic Blast, less than 5 full days of school for our kids since before Christmas break, a broken motor in our furnace in the midst of freezing temps and I’m pretty much questioning my sanity. Yes, really. All of this , mostly in the month of January. Can I get a anew year mulligan? Please?
YoungHouseLove says
Haha! May your new year be filled with mulligans.
xo
s
Meagan says
Two stories…
Two days before my husband and I were set to leave the country for the next 6 months – a year, we discovered a hole in the roof (put there a couple days prior by the yard man who had gotten up there to clean the pine needles off). I hired a contractor who came out to the house in the rain to look at it the day before we left, and his crew fixed it the day after we left. We paid for the work but didn’t see the results until 4 months later.
What we are currently dealing with is a colony of bats that have taken over our attic as their new home. Waiting on the guy to come give us an estimate for removal…quotes usually start at a whopping $3500!!! Not fun.
Steph says
We had a similar issue in the guest bath/laundry room that was fixed by a very thorough snaking that went all the way to the street. The previous owners had a toddler who evidently liked to flush things. The things the plumber found…eek! I seem to be the one who the house gods have anointed as the the finder of bad things – the roof leak, the water line to the fridge bursting, the AC dying in July, etc… Maybe its because they know that I’m handier and calmer when the house breaks than the husband, lol.
Samantha says
Oh man, can I relate! (Although our only “plumbing” issue was caused by ourselves). We have been in our 12 year old house for two and a half years & I feel like we’ve almost been through it all.
After replacing some of the faucets ourselves, my husband had somehow accidentally not completely turned off the water to one of them, which resulted in a nice leak in our finished basement’s ceiling. Nothing serious enough to replace, but it sure had me in tears for a while. Then on the hottest day of summer (in MN mind you), our AC broke. Then on the COLDEST day (in MN of course), our furnace went out. Then on the day we were getting new countertops & the installers needed to use our garage, the garage door broke! Seriously!!
Katie says
We had 2 leaky showers and had a contractor come in and repair one (so the house was livable). The weekend following I came home to a bowed down ceiling and a slow drip from water collecting from 4 people’s morning showers. Plumber came and checked everything just to reveal that the contractor never caulked around the tub after tiling. I fix this myself.
A few months later new contractor comes to fix the master bath shower. Everything goes smoothly for a few months. Now every shower we take there finds its way to my kitchen. Back to using one shower…for now.
Stacey says
Dude, master bathrooms must be cursed. Just before builder shutdown in December our bath tap shot off the wall and sprayed us with boiling water. When we tried to cap the line we had to break out the tiled wall only to find that the pipes had been soldered every few centimetres, which means that there are likely multiple leaks IN THE WALL resulting from our little pressure problem. *le sigh* At least I really dislike the bathroom as it is and have a good reason to gut it now. Always look on the bright side, hey? Yay for a shiny new refurbished bathroom!
Ashley@AttemptsAtDomestication says
Oh the joys of homeownership! Plumbing issues are never any fun, but glad you got it all taken care of! :)
Melissa says
Oh, I feel your pain! We moved out of our “special ed” house recently and the reduced stress load is amazing!
– rain coming through/around windows, windows that wouldn’t close
– leaking boiler system that couldn’t keep up with cold days
– frozen water main – we came home from work one day to no water…
– ceiling falling in on us in the master bedroom
– ice dams on the roof that caused my husband to climb up on the icy, snowy roof in the winter and shovel it off
No house is perfect, but so happy to not be in one that’s quite so special at this point!
http://msgfun.blogspot.com/p/our-house.html
By the way, in-sink garbage disposals should only be used for “cleaning out the sink” type moves, not as an alternative to a compost pile (or garbage can). That’s another way to get yourself an unpleasant plumbing surprise/bill.
Gwen says
Ah yes, the joys of home ownership! HAha. We’ve all been there!
I’ve got a fun one for ya …
On the evening of my birthday, we had dinner/drinks plans with 15 or so of our closest friends, so I was taking a shower and getting ready. While I was in the shower, I suddenly heard a very loud and deep “glub … glub … glub…” I peek out from the shower curtain and there are big, fat bubbles coming up in the toilet bowl water. At that same moment, I notice that the shower has stopped draining. Luckily I was more or less done showering, so I quickly turned off the water and called my husband into the bathroom.
We soon find out that none of the drains in the house were working. So, we called an emergency plumber to come out on a Saturday night (not cheap!). After lots of snaking, it turns out that after 30+ years of settling, our main drainage pipe running under the house and out to the street had gradually come apart. I’m sure it started out as 1/16 of an inch or less, but over the years, hair-like tree roots had worked their way in, and had basically created a sort of loofa sponge-like plug in there. Somehow, (ahem) “drainage” had been filtering through for some time, but that had finally all come to an end.
I finished getting ready to go meet our friends, while my amazing husband turned off the water main, waited for the plumber, then showered at a friend’s house. We still made it out that night to see our friends and celebrate, but I’ll admit it was a bit hard to get in the festive mood, not knowing what exactly we’d be facing in the morning.
Luckily my husband is extremely handy, so he and a friend were able to do part of the work, and a pro plumber did the rest. Saved us a ton of money, but it was such a stressful mess!
Diana says
You guys have such a way of making even stinky things funny! You always enjoy your work! Love it!
Jenn says
I have one for you…if only I could have made this all up!
We moved from the the New Mexico Desert this past summer to the Boston area. Read: Old expensive houses!
We closed on our house and 6 days later the main water line to our house burst and FLOODED our entire basement. Then a heat wave struck and mold grew so fast, it was impressive (we are still adjusting to humidity). The insurance company “totaled” our basement and we begun the rebuild process. Then to add to the woes, when we obtained a building permit from our town to repair the damage we found hidden trouble.
All of our basement electrical was illegally wired. Turns out when the prior owner ran out of space in the 100amp service box…he just spliced and diced the wires all over! We ended up having the wiring re-done and a 200amp service installed. OUCH! Then removing the paneling (because it had mold from top to bottom) revealed that the plates had been laid before the concrete in the basement was poured and for the last 50 years every termite in town has had free and easy access to our basement lumber since it was just sitting on the dirt below for all those years! The garage wall, and all of the walls supporting our staircase (scary) had to be rebuilt because the posts crumbled if you breathed on them. The building inspector was even impressed with the level of termite damage.
Then, when all the work was complete…the contractor hooked our thermostat back up to the boiler and the carbon monoxide detectors went off all over the house. An expensive plumber visit later that was under control.
We decided to be safe we would replace the 14 year old water heater in the basement before it had a chance to go on strike as well.
The silver lining…our basement which looked hauntingly similar to your first house den now is brand new, with wiring that is no longer a fire hazard and we have been grateful that the boiler freaked out in the summer when it wasn’t -10 degrees in the Boston area!
P.S. I found your blog this summer when we were getting ready to move and were looking for basement inspiration. Your first house “den” post came up and I have been a devoted reader ever since! I am inspired how you guys breath new life into old tired houses and make them your own in a practical we have a budget too kind of way!
P.P.S. Congrats on your soon-to-be addition. Here’s to a safe healthy delivery for your sweet family!
YoungHouseLove says
Aw thanks Jenn! It’s awesome to hear from you guys and commiserate today. I’m feeling very bonded over bad plumbing and behind-the-walls house tales today. Haha!
xo
s
Kate C says
Our house was so poorly built that it has actually gotten to a point where it deters us from making home improvements. When shelves can’t be hung safely because the walls are so bowed, baseboard molding requires far more caulk to fix gaps than it should, and tiling a bathroom remodel nearly broke my husband, it gets hard to continue. Basically every time we open up a wall, go in the attic, anything, we find that what should be an easy fix won’t work because nothing was built correctly in the first place. At this point I’m trying for some small cosmetic updates so that we might be able to sell and move on.
Lisa says
Short version: it took us 3 years to fix our guest bathroom toilet problem.
A few months after we moved in to our home we had 4 house guests and the guest bathroom toilet started to overflow. And backed up into the shower. We managed to get it back to status quo and got the shower functional but our guests had to use the half bathroom toilet downstairs for toilet related needed. We got a plumber in and he found part of a latex glove in the toilet. Also, and this was the best, what was either latex paint and/or caulk dumped down the toilet by a previous owner. The plumber was literally pulling chunks of it out of the overturned toilet. He got it flushable but only as a test, if you tried to put any toilet paper in it it would back up again (forgot anything more than that!)
Phase 2 of trying to fix it was for us to replace the toilet in the hopes that there was more caulk in the toilet but it had not made it into the pipes. We actually moved the half bath toilet up and got a new one for the half bath (we knew this may not resolve the issue 100% and we knew the downstairs toilet worked and this way we could at least use the new one right away). Word to the wise: do not try to recycle a broken toilet to use as drainage in the bottom of planters by having your husband smash it with a sledge hammer in the backyard: your husband will end up with a scar on his leg from a flying piece of toilet and you dog will find a piece to cut her paw on in 3 places. Oh, and yeah new toilet still didn’t fix the problem.
Phase 3: return of the plumber. This time he used the heavy duty electric powered snake – and it only went 18 inches down the hole. Not a typo, 18 inches. At this point we knew they’d need to cut a hole in the ceiling (and the plumber gave us some names).
Phase 4: results! After saving up for the problem we finally had the guy there plumber recommended come in and open the ceiling. He had to replace a piece of pipe where the caulk/paint had collected and solidified. I was at work but my husband texted me a picture, I mistook the photo of the clog as the pipe that’s how solid it was!
For 3 years any time we had visitors they had to go downstairs to pee. Granted if it hadn’t been our guest bathroom we would have done it faster but since we didn’t need that toilet daily we took our time to make sure we could afford to fix it properly. In that time, we had a baby (which delayed the project another year) but we managed to fix it before baby #2 and before potty training! Yeah, it’s also the kids’ bathroom.
gail says
Second story plumbing problems..oh yes know that story all to well!
We also have a 2 story home. Right after we moved in I was putting things away in the guest room closet, which is right below the upstairs master bath. I noticed a “gray spot” on the ceiling and thought..”humm why didn’t they paint that?” I touched it…and yes it was wet! We called our realtor who is a good friend and she reminded us we had purchased the 1 year new homeowners insurance that covered this type of thing. She set the wheels in motion to get it fixed.
They sent a plumber over, from the company we usually use, to check it out. He determined it was from the pipes of the sink above and had to cut a hole in the ceiling. He cut the hole and could see a copper pipe had sprung a pinhole leak. Only one small problem…hole was small, work area was small and he was HUGE! They had to send out another small petite plumber to fix leak. The 2nd guy fixed it and they even sent over their permanently employed drywall guy to patch the hole. We paid nothing!
Then about 5 years later we noticed a similar gray spot on the ceiling in the downstairs bathroom, directly below the toilet in Master bath That time no insurance..so we called same plumbing company. They determined the wax seal had deteriorated and caused the “leak”. They fixed it all … dry wall included. But since no insurance … we paid…$650 like you!
Even today I always check the ceilings, downstairs below the bathrooms, for gray ceiling spots!
Anne Phillips says
Nice and easy ending, though it may not have seemed so at the time. Our basement-shower-backup required an $8,500 sewer replacement. Turns out our neighborhood was one of the last constructed with clay pipe in 1982. Clay pipe lasts about 30 years…
YoungHouseLove says
Eeks!
xo
s
Paige @ Little Nostalgia says
We had a water-backing-up-into-the-shower issue, too! Except it was our basement bathroom, and it was because the sewage ejector pump broke. So that was delightful. We had to have the plumber come out twice, and I still suspect that something is wrong down there…
YoungHouseLove says
Boo! I hope it’s smooth sailing from here on out!
xo
s
Kristin says
Hold onto your fox hat, I think I have a good one for you…
I bought my house in Feb. 2008. The inspection revealed some things but nothing that was a make or break situation. We didn’t move in until April so those 2 months gave me time to paint, clean, etc. Once we moved in, the 1st floor bathroom toilet started acting up. We had a plumber come and snake out the like 2x only to reveal baby wipes, paper towels, little toys, and beheaded GI Joes in the main. Then when this happened the 3rd time, the toilet overflowed, the stall shower backed up, everything started winding its way into the hallway, and the basement (unfinished, thankfully) revealed pipes that were gushing sewage. Holy crap…literally!
We called a plumber right away who put a scope down the main line all the way out to the collection tank – only to reveal that the sewer pipe wasn’t connected to the tank and had cracked and moved. Basically, part of the front yard had become a leechfield.
The silver lining in the story is that homeowner’s insurance covered the cost of the bathroom which we ripped out to the studs and remodeled. And, we bought a new poop pipe. Um, yay?
This whole incident started a chain reaction of things going wrong in what I refer to as the Money Pit. It’s no fun to be fixing mechanicals and other things you can’t see when all you want to do is tailor your home to your interests and tastes. But, knowing that it’s done right (all the plumbing in the house was completely wrong which we fixed) is peace of mind. :)
YoungHouseLove says
Haha, I love the fox hat warning. And you’re right about peace of mind. It’s expensive, but very comforting!
xo
s
Jessica Leonard says
Ugh! We seem to have hidden problems pop up every time we start a project. I recently refinished the 60+ hardwood in our house which we are pretty positive continues under the tile in the kitchen. Once I started ripping up tile and fighting my way through cement backer board, I found vinyl flooring over plywood on top of the hardwood.
While researching the easiest way to pry up all this crap, I came upon a little note basically stating that flooring could possibly be asbestos backed, so, you know, get that checked out.
My first though was, I could still maybe do it myself if I use a box cutter to prevent dust, right? Nope. Self removal requires being covered head to toe, and keeping the surface wet to prevent the invisible fibers that are 1,500x thinner than a strand of hair from going into the air and killing me and my family!
So now I’m looking for a place to get it tested, crossing my fingers it’s not asbestos so I can happily rip the crap out. If it is… Well I guess I’ll be putting linoleum over it! Ah well, it’s not our dream house… But I was really looking forward to doing this to the wood underneath for the kitchen: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/480126010245902753/
Amanda Bolan says
We had a similar issue (minus the sewage) happening in our upstairs master shower/downstairs living room. My husband had noticed that the shower wasn’t draining properly and he “fixed it”. A few days later my three year old comes running in the kitchen yelling “Mommy, it’s raining in my pretzels!” That statement warranted attention from me, and sure enough, the shower was leaking into the ceiling fan and down onto the coffee table (with a bowl of pretzels on it). Ceiling fan + water = NERVOUS MOTHER. I quickly turned the power off to the fan and told my husband he in fact did not fix the drain. Come to find out – the original people that tiled our shower did not install a drain box tall enough to allow for any overage so the water was getting between the base of the shower and the tile and seeping into the drywall. The dry wall is fixed but the shower is going to have to be completely redone – we discovered some mold – so we are saving up to get that done this summer. In the mean time – we are all 4 sharing one shower and not happy about it!
YoungHouseLove says
Raining pretzels = hilarious and terrifying! Thanks to everyone for sharing their stories. You guys rock.
xo
s
Helen says
I feel for you guys … our recent unplanned new(ish) house issue has occurred after some utterly horrible weather we’ve had over here in the UK. We painted the study just before Christmas (very classy grey) – the room is downstairs and part of a single storey fairly basic extension that was put on the house a number of years ago. The other day we had to shift some stuff to allow the insulation guys to get access and noticed a couple of drips down our newly painted walls and a couple of tiny damp patches on the ceiling. When the insulation guy turned up (with his nice big ladder) my other half Jeremy went up on the roof to have a look. Apparently it was like a water bed up there! Disaster! We were hoping a little fix was all that’s needed but the different layers on the flat roof are trapping sooooo much water that we need to get a proper roofer in to fix it … we’re reckoning about £1,500 … ouch!!! At the same time though we’d much rather get it sorted properly in case the year’s weather continues in the same vein! The joys :-)
Anne says
The day after our home warranty expired (literally 9am that morning), our garage door wouldn’t open. Turns out the springs were shot. $600 later, and we had a new set of springs. How’s that for timing!?!
YoungHouseLove says
BOOOO! That completely stinks and I just cried a little tear of solidarity for you.
xo
s
Ashley says
Oh, I have quite a “joys of homeownership” story from last summer. We bought our house last March. It was a foreclosure, and needed a bunch of work before we could move in, so we didn’t move in until the beginning of May. One night in July, I came home to the news that something had been scratching around in our attic. It stopped, and we never heard anything else (or smelled anything), so we didn’t think too much of it.
A week or so later, we got a few torrential rainstorms, and noticed that the soffit over our porch was holding some water. We figured a gutter had pulled away a little, or was clogged and letting water spill over. So we climbed up on the roof to see if anything was visibly wrong. Right in a valley of the roof, where we couldn’t see it from the ground, was a wide-open hole about a foot and a half long and a foot wide. It turns out all that scratching my husband heard wasn’t going on in the attic – it was a racoon chewing through 4 layers of shingles and half an inch of plywood over our porch. Luckily, even when it made it through it had no way into the attic. But now we had to fix a giant hole in our roof.
Our insurance company took over two weeks to finally come look at it, and ended up saying we’d need to reace the two slopes leading into that valley. But when roofers started coming out to give us estimates, they all told us that the roof had a lot of soft spots, and was not in great shape. So the roof that our inspector said had a good 5-10 years left in it? It needed a complete tear-off within 6 months. We ended up getting a great deal on the roof, but it was a huge hit to the budget that we definitely weren’t expecting. And, on a much-less-serious-but-still-annoying note, the roofers had originally picked shingles that would have blended the best for doing just the two slopes. But I never thought to ask for a different color when we decided to do the whole roof, and now we’re stuck with an ugly gray roof that clashes horribly with our gray brick. So now I’m looking into staining the bricks (Individually. By hand.) this summer.
Abby says
We have an old house. Many repairs required.
A few years ago, I dropped my tweezers down the the bathroom sink drain. Soon thereafter, the sink clogged. I told my husband to look on-line and figure it out himself. Couldn’t eb that hard! This was at at 11 pm. Well, by midnight, my husband had taken the pipes under the sink apart, but did not find my tweezers and could not put the pipes back together again. Needless to say, we had to call in a plumber the next day.
Thankfully, the plumber put it all back together. Though eh too could not find the tweezers.
The plumber said that the bathroom plumbing had not been done well at all, so, in my husband’s defence, no one would have been able to put it back together again.
Tania @ Run To Radiance says
Omigosh! Something similar happened to us…one night my husband jumped otu of bed and said he heard water running and ran to the bathroom…it had 2 inches of disgusting dirty back up water on the floor, and more was spewing from the toilet and the tub!!!!!! We had to turn off the water and call a plumber after spending hours cleaning the floor. When we went to open our dishwasher…the nasty water had backed up in there too!!!! OMG. Luckily it was empty and luckily I HATED the dishwasher (circa 1970 or something). So we did end up getting to buy a new dishwasher that actually worked because there was no way I was putting plates or cups or anything that touches our mouths in there. It was an expensive weekend.
Jenni says
When we decided to do a full renovation to the bathroom in our first house (which included tearing down walls and making it larger) we had no plumbing concerns. The papers we signed on closing said all the plumbing had been updated and our inspector agreed.
However, while in the demo phase, a helper of ours ever-so-gently brushed against a pipe. IT CRUMBLED. LITERALLY. Our plumbing was NOT modern; it was original 1920’s, and not only that, but improperly repaired over the years. We had a mess on our hands. Thankfully we had a second bathroom in the basement (but it was one that didn’t have a sink…)
Husband knew nothing about plumbing back in those days. (He was 23, it was our first house, and he grew up in a single-mother household), so we had to call in a plumber. We got scammed with a $4,000 bill to replace all the plumbing.
Not my favorite renovation memory!
Kristin says
We just had the very same problem with an uphill drain line in our house. What. A. Mess. Not gonna lie, I had a total “samesies!” bonding moment with you as I read this.
YoungHouseLove says
Toilet twins!
xo
s
Michelle says
We too have a two story. Knock on wood, no leaking from either of the upstairs bathrooms. But the heating, oh the heating… a complete sore spot in this house. Makes me wish we had a rambler. This house is so darn hard to heat. Basement is always cold, no matter the season. Main level.. meh, it has it’s warm areas and very chilly spots. Upstairs, the only warm room is our son’s bedroom because he has a direct run off the furnace. The other two bedrooms up there are COLD in the winter and HOT in the summer. Oh, how I wish we had a split trunk system. We have always had issues with the furnace short cycling. To compound matters, the building inspectors here like to downsize your furnace. To get our CO to move in, they made them switch it out right after we did move in. Original one was wonderful (we did a lot of work in here as well during the building process). This one can’t keep up. Our house is smaller than yours, about 2900 sq ft for all three floors. I also wish the builder would not of switched our subcontractors for the heating and plumbing right after the house was dug, all for a low-ball bid that put more profit in their pocket (and crappy workmanship and issues with our house). We have had minor plumbing issues that we have fixed ourselves.
SusanG says
My dad was trying to help me out as I was buying my second home. I didn’t even own the house yet, seriously, had not closed on it. Trying to put up a pot rack in the kitchen and using his new stud finder gadget, he drilled into a waterline. Water is pouring out of the ceiling and we’re running around trying to find the water cutoff. Thankfully it was just a trap from the master shower. But the builder charged me a fortune to fix that one plumbing mistake. And I was left with a huge hole in the kitchen ceiling.
By the way, that one episode taught me the need to know where your water cut off is for your home. I had mine relocated after that so that it was more easily accessible in the crawl space. My last two homes have had the main water cut off located in the laundry room. Which I find amazingly sensible; along the lines of why didn’t somebody think of that earlier?
YoungHouseLove says
Yes, that’s so smart! Ours is in the crawl space. So annoying!
xo
s
Giulia says
Oh the joys of plumbing! Glad you got it fixed!
We bought our 1958 house and renovated the powder room first thing. A year later we updated the upstairs bathroom with minor things such as new vanity and paint. Then we noticed water dripping on the wall behind our powder room mirror, from the ceiling and air return vent. We opened the vent to see where the water was coming from. We used the overflow on the bathtub and sink to see if that was the issue. Not that lucky – turns out the old copper toilet plumbing had a seam, that was unfortunately facing down – after almost 60 years of flushing and people using harsh cleaners the copper split on that seems. The gross thing was that that toilet water was collecting ALL THE Way on the other side of the powder room ceiling and making it’s way to the opposite wall! My husband took down the whole ceiling, then we had 3 plumbers come in for quotes and my husband ended up doing the work that all of the plumbers suggested himself.
Toilet issues are gross and what was frustrating is that we had to redo the ceiling and the walls of that pretty newly renovated powder room. And it had nothing to do with the reno we were working on above – just chance that it happened at the same time.
Kathi says
Not sure why, but the picture of Burger staring down at John made me think of the bathtub scene in Money Pit. I’ve been giggling for the last ten minutes. Definitely worth a google. :)
Glad to hear that you’ve got it fixed. My brother-in-law and his father-in-law work for Roto-Rooter and let’s just say that they can win just about any gross-out competition. Some of the stories… blech!
YoungHouseLove says
Oh man, I’m sure!
xo
s
Michelle | CreatureType.com says
We have a plumbing problem we’re still a bit scared to tackle. We bought our house in October and during the sewer inspection, discovered that there’s a glass cup mysteriously stuck in one of our pipes. The inspector said he had no idea how it could’ve even gotten in there in the first place, but we likely have two options. 1. Use a snake to try and break the glass and pull out the pieces or 2. Dig up the basement floor to manually remove the glass for fear that shoving a snake down there will only worsen the problem by accidentally pushing the glass into the stack. Yuck. The second option sounds expensive and scary, so we’ve been avoiding the problem. Our house is old and I’m nervous the plumber will discover other problems! Haha, it’ll be nice once we get the nerve/money, though since the water pressure in the kitchen and downstairs bath are noticeably weak.
Jennifer says
We had a period of about six months wherein one phase of our power (about half the house, but it was fairly random which half) would go out without a lot of warning or cause (i.e., it wasn’t because we started the dryer or plugged something new in). We replaced the breakers a couple of times, but ended up spending $600 for an entirely new outdoor breaker box and conduit, because the old incorrect installation had been channeling water into the breaker box for years.
My husband is a specialist in electrical systems on aircraft, so electrical problems in our house are the ones we don’t immediately call for help on…this time, I wish we had.
I did make him install four new can lights in my dining room while all the power was out anyway. ;)
Erin says
This past summer we were on a vacation in Park City UT when I got a call from my Sister in law (who we had asked to check on our house every few days.) It started with “Now, don’t freak out, but…” The water hose going to our evaporative cooler on the roof had sprung a leak in our attic. It saturated all of our insulation and collapsed our ceiling. That water in turn puddled in our bathroom, kitchen and dining room buckling our hard-woods and ruining the sub floor in in our kitchen. Not exactly what you want to return home from vacation too :( To top it all off the next week we got a call from our renter of a town-home we still own saying that there was a leak in his living room coming from the bathroom above. Because that’s a two level home all the pipes are concealed much like yours. We called in Action Plumbing (we hear their ads on the radio all the time) they cut up the ceiling in the living room ran to get a part and had the plumbing issue fixed in 45 minutes. A week later we got a bill for $1200!! We tried and tried to fight it with no luck. I actually just pulled my husband over to read this post and when he got to your price went “What! $650!? Man we got hosed.” During it all though, I learned how to patch and texture drywall, we learned how to cut out laminate flooring and install hard-woods… Soon we’ll learn how to sand and refinish our existing hard-woods as well. Knowledge is priceless right? LOL Thank heaven mine had nothing do do with sewer. Don’t know if my stomach could take that, preggo or not!
Helen says
ps … that was first time I’ve posted on here but I’ve been an avid reader for the last two years!! Thank you so much for sharing … it’s given us some wonderful ideas for our own home and a great outlook on not only the successes but the disasters too!! Great reading! Thanks!!
YoungHouseLove says
Aw, thanks Helen!
xo
s
Steph says
I might be delirious but that picture of Burger looking at John through the hole is just too funny.
I’ve had plenty of issues with my new house. It was like a crash course in “Welcome to Homeownership”. Within the first year I had to buy a fridge, replace the dishwasher, and the dryer. Then within the same MONTH the washing machine and the water heater broke and flooded my basement. I’m betting my days are numbered with the stove and AC.
Also, I bought a foreclosure so I expected some things to not be perfect. Like I had to buy a fridge because the previous owners had taken theres. And I had to have an electrician and plumber come to fix some issues.
But the most disgusting thing ever? The previous owners had installed make-shift bidets on the toilets. He quite literally cut the water line and basically installed kitchen sprayers there, hooked onto the side of the toilet. And this wasn’t like the diaper sprayer you installed which was made for that purpose. No, it was a kitchen sprayer. Hooked on the toilet. Whatever he did, he messed up the plumbing bad. I had them removed before I even moved in.
To make things worse, the first night I’m going to sleep in my brand new condo we discover the pipes making this loud vibrating sound. My guess is it wasn’t noticed before because prior to that day the condo had been empty for over a year! It just got progressively louder until the point where I couldn’t actually sleep in my own house on the day I moved in. I slept on the couch at my parents until the plumber came the next day.
The culprit? Whatever that other person did to make those makeshift bidets really screwed up the toilet on the top floor.
Jen says
Ugh! Glad its fixed, could have been worse. I have to tell myself that all the time.
Our pipes weren’t properly braced when the house was built. Its really annoying because all it takes is a few little horseshoe type brackets to keep the pipes against the studs. What happens is that every time two sources of water are used at the same time – like the toilet flushes and its fully filled before washing your hands – the pipes bang so loudly that it sounds like someone drove a truck through the wall. Its getting worse and we are scared that one day a piper will burst and start a leak behind the wall. At least all we have to do is rip open and entire section of wall in our two story foyer, the wall under our main staircase, the dining room wall and ceiling and maybe other areas we don’t yet know about. Yeah, that won’t be expensive or anything. Ugh!
Nawel says
YES! When my husband and I were getting our inspection done on a house we were purchasing, our inspector (bless him!!) said that he liked to ‘overload’ the system by running most of the water sources at once to see what would happen. Everything was fine until he ran the basement shower and immediately black water started GUSHING out of the drain and it wouldn’t stop. Before you know it, our shower was filled with dirt…..and worms. Yes, I said it, worms. A plumber came out, and said the main drainage line from the house to the street was so old that it was “riddled” with holes so everything that was in our yard were in our pipes. The only fix was to dig up the entire line that ran the length of our front yard and replace it. $6,000 later, the problem was fixed. The only positive thing about that experience is that we didn’t have to pay for it, but I can’t use that shower without seeing worms all in it.
YoungHouseLove says
EWWWWWW! You have my deepest sympathies.
xo
s
Sarah says
Ugh. I have one unfolding right now. We had a circuit breaker trip that we couldn’t reset, and when we replaced the breaker the new one tripped right away. So somewhere in our walls is a short. The electrician comes tonight to try and determine where – meanwhile we have no TV or cable, because thats the circuit that is out. (Which, I suppose, is better than the fridge being out).
Kelli says
Oh dear!! My dad is a licensed plumber (though he is a jack of all trades) and he says there are only two rules of plumbing: 1) Sh*t runs downhill, and 2)payday’s on Friday. Funny, and awful, that such a silly little thing caused such a big, big problem! Glad you found and fixed the cause and hope you’re in the clear for a long time to come. :)
Jill says
We’re renting a house covered from head to toe in heinous wallpaper. Unfortunatly our homeowners grew up in the house, are sentimental about the huge flowers all over my walls, and won’t let us make any changes. Please know that when you rip your ugly wallpaper down it does something good for me. Makes me feel better about our ugly wallpaper in some weird way. So thank you. :)
YoungHouseLove says
Haha! You’re very welcome Jill!
xo
s
Katie says
I feel your pain! With all the cold and snow this winter an ice dam kept cropping up on my roof and started leaking into my house. I have plaster ceilings so the leak started to make the plaster peel and crumble to the floor. My boyfriend did a bunch of research for me while I mainly freaked out about it and found that if I raked the snow off the roof it would prevent the ice dam from forming. That’s been a great solution so far, but I plan to beef up my insulation/ventilation this spring to stop this from happening in the future. Not a fun thing!
Merrie says
Glad y’all got it fixed!
We found out after a year in our house that all the tile in the showers was installed over drywall, not wet board. Water had been leaking into the walls for five years. It was a mess, very expensive to repair. The only upside is we live in a dry climate so we were able to rip stuff out and let it dry and had very little mold. It was a nightmare. And so disappointing that a builder would skimp on unskilled labor like that!
Jamie says
This reminds me of my plumbing fiasco the first week we moved into our house and I was about 2 1/2 months pregnant. I was trying to turn the water off on the shower after I had finished showering and the hot water knob came off in my hand, which meant that the water began shooting out of the plumbing towards me and also between the walls in the house down into the garage. I hadn’t even gotten to know where the water turn-off was and I was home alone, so what does a poor girl do – she called her dad, crying.
He was able to walk me through turning it off, but that meant that I had to crawl through a crawl space in our downstairs soaking wet and in just a towel. I finally got the water turned off but not before Niagra Falls dumped about a good half foot of water all over my husband’s tool bench in the garage and all over the floor, and my bathroom walls and floor were covered in water.
I now laugh, but at the time I cursed the house and told my husband that I hated the house and wanted to move back to our apartment.
Fun homeowner memories!
YoungHouseLove says
Oh Jamie, that’s the worst! I’m so glad your dad could walk you through it!
xo
s
Leiann says
Woah, that sounds like a disgusting job! About two years ago my tub started to suddenly not drain properly. I would shower and end up in a foot of water when I was done, etc. and it would literally take FOREVER for the water to go down. We tried snaking it, plunging it and everything in between. I was about to call a plumber when my grandpa suggested doing some main pipe disassembly in the basement! It was a pretty scary situation that involved unscrewing a MAIN pipe that went outside, a garden hose, a pretty standard thing you can buy at the hardware store (he of course had the tool on hand). You basically unscrew the pain pipe, put this balloon-type rubber thing up the pipe, and it expands to fill the width of the pipe. You turn the hose on (which is hooked to the laundry tub faucet) and the pressure from the balloon thing and the water blasts whatever is caught in your main pipe out. We had a five gallon bucket underneath just in case and out came some pretty gnarly, really smelly stuff but ever since then, it’s been good as new!
I’m glad you got yours fixed and probably in the big scheme of things, it wasn’t that expensive of a fix compared to maybe what could have happened! :)