N exactly FRC but it has to do with the kitchen.....in 8 years of living...

J

joanietoo

Well-known member
in our newly built house we have had only one real problem with pipes...The builders did not glue the toilet pipes and they all are in the cement cast walls...This toilet problem fortunately we found while the builders were here and they had to drill etc and corrected it.

BUT 8 years later my DH finally is putting up the gutters...(long story about thinking the cistern was going to leak and pumps are too expensive not to say the custom made liner...and 8 years later we open up the cistern to find it full of good clean water...no leaks so he decided to start on the gutters...believe it or not the only way water made it into the cistern is from the rain through the lid!!!!)

Well, in time for this storm, he put up gutters into the down pipes which lead to the cistern.

The down pipes go through the walls and he started with the gutters over the kitchen / dining area...

This morning the ENTIRE kitchen/utilty/entrance hall are flooded...builders did not build flat floors and the flood is 3 inches deep on the other side of the kitchen away from the door, next to my cupboards...

AND we cannot find where this water actually came in...

Sadly, I did mention to DH..."dont you think you should test the pipes with the hose before connecting" and he said "no....I am sure it will be OK the water goes downhill".... funny, I just had this 6th sense....

Now we are in a quandry as to where to start.....I am not going to cook as I am frightened of electrical shocks etc.....

1st we have disconnected the gutter from the down pipe but , but , but ,......

URGH......

 
Joanie, how awful. smileys/frown.gif Lots of luck with the cleanup. I hope DH listens to yr 6th sense now! smileys/wink.gif

 
Oh, the pain. They do that a lot here in FL..bury the pipes in the cement foundation, then

when lightening strikes the ground, the lines can develop pin-point leaks. Takes FOREVER to find the source and plug it. And most times there are more than one pin point hole. And since the water runs under the linoleum or flooring, it doesn't have to be anywhere near the sopping leaky spot. That's usually when the plumber recommends rerouting the entire pipe structure up and over the attic space. Had 3 separate friends have this happen to their homes.

Good luck, joanie!

 
Joanie, Sorry to hear your situation. Hope it gets better quickly. Leaks are just terrible.

 
Water follows the path of least resistance, often far, far, far from the actual leak.

Very frustrating, I know. And frankly, some architects and engineers are more adept at mazes than plans. Good luck finding the breach, it can be trial and error and, as pointed out, there may be more than one breach. In the meantime, I hear waders are the new fashion must have smileys/smile.gif

 
'Cause no water ever went down them....there are two leaks we found...

or three...one at the bend the pipe takes just inside the wall at the top where the gutter connects to the pipe...and the next two are thos joins that give the pipe a bend to run flat along under the floor...so it appears to be confined to one whole corner of the house...this is where we have an adjoining wooden section (sort of Bali style house here).....so jack hammering the corner away will affect rather a large area....
I have suggested maybe we can insert a 'squeegy' pipe past these joints.....DH actually thinks I have a good point there as long as the size of the pipe is still big enough for torrential downpours to swish along at a good rate.

I am hiding in my PC at the moment....sick of trying to mop up and then he tests again to have me mop again and again....Oh dear.

 
Well, there wasnt much of a storm...however a poss cat 4 is heading this way though a bit North ....

of us...Long may BILL keep heading up into the Atlantic.

 
Lor' Mar...yes it could be a problem delux....

we have SA imported tiles and can't get matching or replacements, never mind all the rest but we do seem to have found the area of leaks...in the wall.
Just 'fyi' our house was built not quite as a proto-type but we thought it would be an excellent good hurricane strong building...we lived through the worst hurricane in living memory ('95) remember.(And were yachties in those days.)
Worst hurricane in that it was the wind....blowing off the clock for hours and stayed around the island for 3 days all told...not a joke. (A cat 5 head on then circled this island)
So we went ahead with this German idea...Magu...
Styrofoam building blocks filled with poured concrete....right......
Imagine trying to jack-hammer this away and then filling it all to look good.
The outside walls also have been layered with a sort of gauze ('cause we have loads of earth tremours and then a lot of house sget bad cracks...we have none!!) and over this we had a special plaster layer and on top of that we painted with a product that will never need painting again.......
Boy, to try to break up and put it all back together again is more than I can bare.....
Ohhhhh.

 
TX Gay....

it is clean water unlike the first prob those years ago which is why I was sceptical about the pipes being connected........the leaks are in the wall, oozing out behind the fridge and the freezer.

 
I think I'd be tempted to fill the voids with concrete and put the gutters on the outside

of the house. I would think an insulated concrete form house like yours would withstand the winds just fine!

 
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