Since we were gone to Cairo, the weather turned bitter cold here and burst the pipes in the laramie bathroom. Wall filled up like a cup but most water drained into crawlspace. Must have been running for a week. KB found it tuesday when she arrived and lost 5 hours of her day getting a plumber over there to fix.
I went up after work last night with cleanup in mind and I bought two portable heaters...a baseboard type with timer and digital thermostat and an oil filled radiant heater.
Put baseboard type in bedroom along wall near outlet. Was nice sleeping there with heat in that room. Ben loved it too as he didn't try to come up on bed (when it's cold, he insists!!)
The oil filled one I put in bathroom to prevent another freeze. Tried using the little space heater along with it to dry out the framing but both running kept blowing breaker; too much wattage. Left it on all night and already framing showed signs of drying out. Told KB to leave it on through weekend and into next week when we can go back up there.
we dug out all of the wet insulation-was like a sponge, removed the damaged drywall and hoping everything will dry out in a few days. Don't want a mold problem in the wall after I fix. What a mess, but fortunately most of the water drained down into crawl space instead of coming into bathroom.
Plumber did a good job of putting in new valve and aligning pipes with drainage away from valve so if it does freeze again, won't burst valve. He suggested we leave a good opening to access valve too so room heat goes into wall to protect the pipes. Considering putting in wall vents (like return air vents) so the pipes have access to the warmer air from the room.
Another weekend's worth of work to get us back where we were before.
Dang.
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