evohr.org > events > 1st repair

Any time you buy a house, you do your best to make sure that you know what all your out-of-pocket costs will be. Inspections, downpayments, closing costs, known repairs, etc. all get added up so you know exactly how much cash you'll need, right?

Wrong. Standard advice to any new homeowner is to also set aside some extra money for a rainy day fund, just in case you need to do a significant repair job in the first year. Our experience with our first house confirmed that this is very sound advice.

Sure enough, we had only been in this house less than 9 months when Murphy struck again. In March, we realized that we had a leak oozing up through our living room floor. In theory, the process for fixing leaks is pretty simple:

  • turn off the water,
  • locate which pipe is leaking,
  • expose the leaky section,
  • remove it,
  • replace it,
  • turn the water back on, and
  • make sure the leak is gone.

However, this house has radiant heating, which means that the pipes are encased in the concrete slab below the flooring. Thus, the plumbing process winds up looking a lot more like dentistry (without benefit of X-rays). It's hardly a do-it-yourself job, so we got recommendations and brought in a specialist to do the work.

Click on any image below to start the slide show at that point:

leak

carpet1 carpet2 carpet3
padding leak1 leak2 leak3
locate
tools drill1 hole drill2 gotcha
drill3 hose drill4 splash
expose
leak leak2 widen cracks cracks2 exposed
location width depth
remove
polish cutting cutter disjoint reflect1 reflect2
replace
glow angles dry_fit
flux blowtorch solder1 solder2 solder3 solder4
sand buried concrete
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