Tuesday, July 22, 2014

The Case of the Swollen Door(s)

So we've been dealing with an interesting, or annoying phenomenon, pretty much since we bought the house. The front door and master bedroom door sticks. But about a month or so ago, the front door swelled so much that I almost couldn't open it. I've sanded both doors down, but they would just start sticking again. Then, a couple weeks ago, we got an estimate on our ductwork, while the tech was in our crawl, he noticed that we had a broken pipe, and a large pool of water.
Basically all the water from the house, accept the toilet and washer, was pouring into the crawl.
So, my husband donned my hazmat suit and shimmied under the house and re-cemented the pipes together. One pipe is a little too long and needs to be trimmed, because it's causing the joint to not fit properly. It could come apart again. This is why I'd rather do this stuff my self, look at the results when you PAY supposed PROFESSIONALS? Well, I didn't pay for the pipes, the previous owner did. I'm not sure how long the pipe has been broken, but we noticed a month or so ago, that the drainage fields had long deep cracks running their entire length. We thought it was maybe because of the hot dry weather. But it was most likely because there wasn't anything draining out into the field.
Also, a few days after my husband fixed the pipe, the front door now opens and shuts like a normal door! And the master bedroom door isn't sticking as much now either. My mom thought maybe it's because he fixed the pipe. There was literally a small pond under our house and that's a lot of moisture. There's already a moisture issue because of the sweaty ducts. But nothing like having around 150-200 gallons of water a day. That's a worst case scenario of 3 showers @ 40 gallons each, 1 dishwasher load @ 15 gallons, using the sink to wash dishes, and my daughter having a bath. I didn't include tooth brushing. I found a chart here: How Much Water? Basically, there was ALOT of water dumping into the crawlspace. It was as if our crawl had become a gray water holder, which I have thought about diverting gray water for using in the garden. But not like this. Really puts water usage into perspective.

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