I love it when a plan comes together
On the coldest week of the year - in years it seemed - we missed the power out, but did manage to get our pipes frozen.
In over a hundred years of bad renovators, our house has seen pretty much everything that be done wrong, done, well, wrong. This week it was the wind (not draft, note) in the walls getting strong enough to freeze the pipes - enough procrastination and fallout 3; something had to be done.
Because - hang on, this is going to be a bit and I deserve a beer. Sorry - it was time to give the cats their treats. Ok.
Because of where the pipes go, and were we still had water - the basement bathroom, but not the basement shower - I could tell that the pipes were frozen behind the shower wall. Feeling the wall, there was a section that was much colder than the rest of the wall, so that sort of confirmed that was where the cold was getting in. It's worth noting that on Thursday night we had full cold water, and a trickle of hot water in the basement - thinking it was better to turn off the water than risk a break in the night, I shut the water off, and thus the pipes froze all the way through. In retrospect, I should have left both taps on trickle in the basement shower to slowly melt the ice. If there was a real concern of burst pipes, turning off the water would have been ok if I'd bothered to drain the pipes as well. Just turning off the water didn't really help.
So, it was with a real hankering for a shower, and a growing pile of dirty dishes, that Saturday was designated the day for Ripping Shit Up. Peeling back the cheap-ass carpets we've put down on the paper-thin hardwood floor (16" slivers in your feet, anyone?), I took a look at the floor just above where the cold spot was. Like I said, everything that could go wrong with this house, has, and usually more than once. There was a suspicious chunk of cheap, new(er) plywood over where I needed to cut, so, while making my work easier, I suspected this is where trouble had happened in the past.
Suited up in eye, ear and dust masks, I made it through the floorboards without digging into the beams underneath. Once open, I could see the bathroom exhaust duct and a small cloud of condensation where wind was blowing in around where it went through the wall. As we rarely use the fan - preferring to leave the bathroom door open to vent the humidity back into the house - I thought fuck it, just rip the whole damn thing out. This may come back to bite me on the ass if we switch to hot water heating from forced air (as the forced air is what forces the humid air out of the bathroom), but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. Right now I had a fist-sized hole into the alley to patch.
I could see the pipes as well. They were a bit corroded - pissed on regularly by mice - but intact. Now, how best to seal the hole?
Of course, the best way would be to get into the alley with cement and brick fragments and mortar the thing up, but mortar doesn't set will in below zero temps. Making do, I stuffed a chunk of brick into the hole to choke the wind off a bit, then broke out the metal mosquito mesh. I was going to have to seal this with spray foam insulation - no way that was going to keep vermin out on its own, so I stuffed a couple of double folded squares of mesh into the opening and set to with the spray foam. Once covered in foam, I set another folded square over the foam (to keep it from slumping, as large expanses of sprayed insulation are given to do), and pushed a chunk of wood against the whole mess to close it off - this is why I keep a bucket of scrap wood; with a bit of looking, I had a piece that fit the whole perfectly. A bit more spray foam around the edges to tidy up and I was pretty much done - except for the fact that there was still no hot or cold water.
Having read up online about frozen pipes, I had read that people recommended warming pipes with hair dryers, but that's one article of home hardware I don't have. Exhausted, needing to get ready to go out for dinner, and pretty much fed up, I hit on a bright idea - remember the bathroom exhaust fan? I had disconnected the exhaust pipe, but not the fan. If I turned the fan on, it would vent the bathroom's air into the space under the floor - just where the pipes happened to be.
Of course, this would be a dump idea if I'd just had a shower, as mold and rot would set in with all that humid air trapped in the floor and walls, but, given that the bathroom is the first place the forced air gets let out on its way through the house, it's also the hottest and driest room in the house if you haven't just had a shower. I figured if I turned the fan on, it would vent hot, dry air right where the frozen pipes were, so I turned the fan on and waited.
I didn't have a chance to get ready for disappointment when a few drips started coming out of the shower tap, then a trickle, then, with a bang as the ice let go, a rush of rust-coloured water, then clean, hot water at full pressure. Glad that's fucking over - glad the draft is partially stopped, and in the spring I'll be out with mortar and trowel to finish the job.
Signing off from Parkdale,
M.
In over a hundred years of bad renovators, our house has seen pretty much everything that be done wrong, done, well, wrong. This week it was the wind (not draft, note) in the walls getting strong enough to freeze the pipes - enough procrastination and fallout 3; something had to be done.
Because - hang on, this is going to be a bit and I deserve a beer. Sorry - it was time to give the cats their treats. Ok.
Because of where the pipes go, and were we still had water - the basement bathroom, but not the basement shower - I could tell that the pipes were frozen behind the shower wall. Feeling the wall, there was a section that was much colder than the rest of the wall, so that sort of confirmed that was where the cold was getting in. It's worth noting that on Thursday night we had full cold water, and a trickle of hot water in the basement - thinking it was better to turn off the water than risk a break in the night, I shut the water off, and thus the pipes froze all the way through. In retrospect, I should have left both taps on trickle in the basement shower to slowly melt the ice. If there was a real concern of burst pipes, turning off the water would have been ok if I'd bothered to drain the pipes as well. Just turning off the water didn't really help.
So, it was with a real hankering for a shower, and a growing pile of dirty dishes, that Saturday was designated the day for Ripping Shit Up. Peeling back the cheap-ass carpets we've put down on the paper-thin hardwood floor (16" slivers in your feet, anyone?), I took a look at the floor just above where the cold spot was. Like I said, everything that could go wrong with this house, has, and usually more than once. There was a suspicious chunk of cheap, new(er) plywood over where I needed to cut, so, while making my work easier, I suspected this is where trouble had happened in the past.
Suited up in eye, ear and dust masks, I made it through the floorboards without digging into the beams underneath. Once open, I could see the bathroom exhaust duct and a small cloud of condensation where wind was blowing in around where it went through the wall. As we rarely use the fan - preferring to leave the bathroom door open to vent the humidity back into the house - I thought fuck it, just rip the whole damn thing out. This may come back to bite me on the ass if we switch to hot water heating from forced air (as the forced air is what forces the humid air out of the bathroom), but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. Right now I had a fist-sized hole into the alley to patch.
I could see the pipes as well. They were a bit corroded - pissed on regularly by mice - but intact. Now, how best to seal the hole?
Of course, the best way would be to get into the alley with cement and brick fragments and mortar the thing up, but mortar doesn't set will in below zero temps. Making do, I stuffed a chunk of brick into the hole to choke the wind off a bit, then broke out the metal mosquito mesh. I was going to have to seal this with spray foam insulation - no way that was going to keep vermin out on its own, so I stuffed a couple of double folded squares of mesh into the opening and set to with the spray foam. Once covered in foam, I set another folded square over the foam (to keep it from slumping, as large expanses of sprayed insulation are given to do), and pushed a chunk of wood against the whole mess to close it off - this is why I keep a bucket of scrap wood; with a bit of looking, I had a piece that fit the whole perfectly. A bit more spray foam around the edges to tidy up and I was pretty much done - except for the fact that there was still no hot or cold water.
Having read up online about frozen pipes, I had read that people recommended warming pipes with hair dryers, but that's one article of home hardware I don't have. Exhausted, needing to get ready to go out for dinner, and pretty much fed up, I hit on a bright idea - remember the bathroom exhaust fan? I had disconnected the exhaust pipe, but not the fan. If I turned the fan on, it would vent the bathroom's air into the space under the floor - just where the pipes happened to be.
Of course, this would be a dump idea if I'd just had a shower, as mold and rot would set in with all that humid air trapped in the floor and walls, but, given that the bathroom is the first place the forced air gets let out on its way through the house, it's also the hottest and driest room in the house if you haven't just had a shower. I figured if I turned the fan on, it would vent hot, dry air right where the frozen pipes were, so I turned the fan on and waited.
I didn't have a chance to get ready for disappointment when a few drips started coming out of the shower tap, then a trickle, then, with a bang as the ice let go, a rush of rust-coloured water, then clean, hot water at full pressure. Glad that's fucking over - glad the draft is partially stopped, and in the spring I'll be out with mortar and trowel to finish the job.
Signing off from Parkdale,
M.