When it’s time for that annual visit and you’re approaching 50, the question from the doctor is no longer, “Do you have to get up to go to the bathroom during the night,” but rather, “How many times do you have to get up to go to the bathroom during the night.”
Fortunately, that answer for me remains “one”. That’s kind of beside the point, though.
Those nocturnal ventures give you a time when the house is quieter than any other time. The road noise is minimal (this semi-somnambulating tending to come sometime between 2 and 3 a.m.), and it gives you a chance you don’t have any other time of the day to truly hear the silence – or lack thereof – in your home.
So it wasn’t a good thing the other night when, as I stumbled through the dark, my thought was, “I hear water running.”
In an 80 year old house where everyone is asleep and has been for quite some time, the sound of running water is never a good thing.
We learned a few years ago that it’s something of which you must take immediate note – especially if it’s coupled with the thought, “my socks are wet.”
While it’s somewhat comforting to realize that you’re not just a victim of poor aim if the discovery is made upon entry to rather than exit from the bathroom, the reality is that washing your socks is much easier than replacing the ceiling downstairs.
In this case, sleep wasn’t going to happen again so I started making the rounds to the different potential places, hoping that I’d just left the hydrant outdoors on again. Eventually in the downstairs bathroom I heard the drip. Turning the light on, I saw the ceiling.
Bulging. Visibly damp. Discolored when it had been creamy white just a few hours earlier.
The culprit had to be from the apartment bathroom. 8:00 saw calls to the plumber with a plea for expediency.
Of course, these things are never in front of those little plumbing access doors that are strategically located through the house like elfin access ports. Nonetheless, we felt obliged to look there with a flashlight anyhow. As we took turns kneeling down in the bathroom closet peering through the darkness at 80 years worth of collected dust bunnies, water hit each of us on the head.
My next thought was, “This really can’t be good.”
Water should not be coming from above the 2nd floor, especially since it hasn’t rained in a couple of weeks. Some incarnation of plumbing renewal re-routed the original water lines overhead through the attic. Anything leaking up there was a catastrophe of significant scope.
A little more peering into the dark – this time up rather than down – and a faulty shower valve was revealed as the culprit. It was apparently leaking water between the tile and the backing and, when this space filled up, it was running down the wall to the ceiling of the bathroom below.
Like all things in old houses, it was nothing that money couldn’t fix. As plumbing repairs go, this was even reasonable. The new control came with a tub spout and shower head, so it’s all spiffed up right now. The worst damage to the house was what I did when I tried to open the “bubble” in the ceiling with a box knife, to let the water out.
Turns out it wasn’t retaining water and no diuretic was necessary. The morning was wrecked calling the plumber and going to pick out the new parts and things, but the repairs took less than a day.
Except for the fact that now the ceiling has to be patched and painted.
2 comments:
Always could have been worse. Glad it wasn't.
Ralph would just like to add a thank you for doing this site. It is always a pleasurable start to the day when I go to it and find that you written something so noteworthy or entertaining. My morning dose of caffeine is certainly enhanced. Who would think that a trek to the bathroom could be so adventurous or entertaing to us (though not to you)? Thank you.
Post a Comment