The Power of Ice

We have had a HARD freeze in Missouri.

A couple days ago the water line in our laundry room froze.

I resigned myself to not doing laundry for a couple days,

but some things like dirty clothes cannot be put off from washing indefinitely.

So yesterday I bought a space heater and set it up

in the laundry room.

Almost 18 hours later, the dam broke.

Water gushed from under the wall and

across the floor of the back porch

and cascaded down the foundation wall in the basement.

My husband said, "I was afraid this might happen".

I don't know how we could have avoided it.

If it didn't happen today, it would have happened next Wednesday

when the temperature is expected to go above freezing.

And we might not have been home to catch the flood before our water meter spun itself silly.

Being that our house is almost 100 years old and the plumbing is cobbled together by a successive line of both professional and amateur plumbers, there is no shut off valve in the basement to the laundry room plumbing.

My husband had to shut the water off at the street.

The whole house was without water.

My husband said it might take 3 hours to repair.

I caught myself several times washing my hands at a dry sink.

Fortunately, Rebecca was getting a midday bath when the laundry room pipe started gushing,

so we had a tub full of water for flushing the toilet while repairs were being made.

Using the toilet is also something you can't put off indefinitely.

The repair took less than 3 hours (a relief),

but made a big mess.

Drywall dust spewed into the air as the wall was cut

(with a power saw)

to access the broken pipe.

The price I pay for having working plumbing!

Good thing I hadn't done any cleaning in the laundry or (ajoining) kitchen recently.

I would be recleaning.

While out for replacement pipe,

my husband stopped at the grocery store, at my request,

for a botte of wine.

He didn't question it.

Just bought the wine.

He thinks he's getting lucky later.

:)

All this fuss over a plug of ice in a half inch copper pipe!