Monday, February 5, 2007

Ah yes. I love this house.

I woke up to no running water. Went to the basement and found the main water pipe was frozen. Alright, this sucks. So I get the hair dryer out and start thawing the pipes. I left the laundry tub faucet on and could see water dripping out as the ice melted. At some point I heard the ice clanking around, which I thought was a good thing because that means I'm getting movement. The next thing I knew I was getting sprayed in the face by freezing water. The main pipe burst. Alright, this really sucks. Now, I'm no stranger to water adventures, but there's no way I'm going to be able to fix this. So I get on the internet to find a plumber ... oh wait, no internet. This really sucks and now I'm getting irritated. I somehow found a number and was able to get somebody to come out on an "emergency" call. About an hour later, the plumber shows up, calmly assesses the situation, and starts re-routing the main instead of fixing it. the main was along the foundation wall, inside the finished wall and above the ceiling. The worst possible spot since this area is cold and gets no heat. The plumber said it was a miracle that this hadn't happened before. Apparently they didn't have cold weather back when they built the house. Anyway, a few hours and a couple hundred bucks later, i had running water again. This really sucks and I'm irritated, but it's over. I guess they had around 50 calls relating to pipe bursts. If I learned anything, it's that if you can wait to call a plumber on Monday instead of the weekend, do it. Overtime (weekend) rates are triple that of normal emergency calls.