{"id":1255,"date":"2008-03-06T22:43:21","date_gmt":"2008-03-07T04:43:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/?p=1255"},"modified":"2008-03-06T22:43:21","modified_gmt":"2008-03-07T04:43:21","slug":"inside-the-walls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/?p=1255","title":{"rendered":"Inside the walls"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dare I say that we have tackled the last few leaks in this house — The House Of 1,000 Leaks?<\/p>\n

Since we bought the place last year we have been randomly discovering leaks in the plumbing, and repairing them as they turn up. \u00a0 It started with a dripping garden hose faucet outside, and the hot water line for the washing machine. \u00a0 Then we started to see leaks everywhere: the shutoff for the toilet didn’t quite shut off; the toilet ran until you jiggled the handle; another outside faucet began to drip, then another.<\/p>\n

We eventually replaced every bit of plumbing in the house except for the lines themselves. \u00a0 This included all four outside faucets, three sink faucets and associated shutoffs, laundry connections, two toilet shutoffs, both toilets, ice maker shutoff, and even the shutoff to the house itself (which didn’t shut off). \u00a0 For a while we were complacent in our water-thriftiness, until a couple of weeks ago.<\/p>\n

Then I noticed the thin wet line below the tub faucet in Emma’s bathroom. \u00a0 The thin wet line never stopped, even when the shower taps were closed for days …<\/p>\n

And then I noticed the little puddle on the floor, that seemed to arise from the tile grout itself, like a natural spring, after a shower in the hall bathroom …<\/p>\n

We had forgotten about the shower taps. \u00a0 Like every other water fixture in the house, they were 37 years old. \u00a0 The washers were long since worn out, and they were leaking water, possibly inside the walls. \u00a0 This gave me visions of black mold and rotted wood. \u00a0 Who knew what evils lurked in the dark, behind the tile?<\/p>\n

\"tucson-bath-demo.jpg\"<\/a>This was a tough call. \u00a0 A peek inside the wall would be expensive, and we’d undoubtedly break the tiles. \u00a0 Since they are impossible to match with modern tiles, we’d have to come up with a complementary tile to replace them.<\/p>\n

We decided that if were going to sleep well at night, and leave this house alone for months at a time, we needed to do some exploratory surgery. After some planning, we arranged to have the showers gently dissected, saving as many of the original tiles as possible. Eleanor found a nice glass tile that will go well with the originals and placed an order for them.<\/p>\n

Today was surgery day. \u00a0 Contractor Chris came over and took things apart. He confirmed that the taps were leaking — badly — but that no damage had been done behind the walls. \u00a0 The water was dripping onto a hidden edge of the tub and thus never reached the wood studs in the wall. \u00a0 In the hall bath he replaced the ancient three-knob system with a modern self-balancing shower control and put everything back together. \u00a0 Next week, when the tile order comes in, he’ll finish the job.<\/p>\n

In Emma’s bath, things are much worse. \u00a0 That shower has been heavily used over the past decades, and it really could use a complete rebuilding. \u00a0 We had Chris remove the old leaking taps, seal up the plumbing, and just leave the wall open. \u00a0 We’re going to ignore this bath until we get back in the fall, figuring that we can take all summer to decide what we want to do about it.<\/p>\n

For now, ours will be a 1.5 bath house. \u00a0 Being just the three of us, we don’t really need two full baths anyway, and since we’ve lived in an Airstream for over two years with only one very small bathroom, even having an extra half-bath represents complete luxury bordering on decadence. \u00a0 Our expectations of a house have been re-defined by our travel experience: if it doesn’t leak and we have one good bathroom, we’re happy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dare I say that we have tackled the last few leaks in this house — The House Of 1,000 Leaks? Since we bought the place last year we have been randomly discovering leaks in the plumbing, and repairing them as they turn up. \u00a0 It started with a dripping garden hose faucet outside, and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[19],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1255"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1255\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}