Public Service Announcment. Check those lines.

MartyE,

   Good advise advice sir, especially when moving into a new place, of course if you are purchasing, a good home inspection should have caught this problem.  If you payed for one, get your money back!  Of course this can happen in any home at any time, hope the damage was minimal to your new home and your trains.

PCRR/Dave

Glad you didn't loose any engines MARTY. 

I had the same thing water wise happen to me.  My float in the washer didn't work and overflowed the washer and because the drain had a piece of rubber mat on it, the water backed up and I too had lost some shipping boxes.  All my boxes are 2 inches off the floor now.  I have them on ripped 2 x 4s with a half inch piece of plywood on top.

My son's house in Va. is on a slab and he had a hot water tank line let go. Result was a lot of water damage to the house and furnishings so it happens.  Ice cube  maker water lines are another place to watch.

It's a scary thing, but you just have to always be ready for it. I've had two water heaters rupture and leak into my train room in the last 8 years so I can speak from experience.

Marty Get that  wood stove going. .  With your luck, perhaps not.  Get it inspected first.

Whenever we leave the house for even an overnite, the main water valve is shut off.

Cheap insurance

I left for the day at work.  I'm guess with the amount of water it was only ruptured for about an hour or so.

Yep.....was in my current home about nine months when 2" of rain in 3 hours put 6 inches of water in my otherwise bone dry basement. LOTS of stuff still in boxes on floor. Never again does anything sit right on floor. 

We carried an assortment of braided stainless steel toilet supply line lengths so as to provide the proper fit upon resetting the bowl.

Also, check you washer hoses.  We install a single lever 90 degree turn common shut off and replace all existing lines with braided SS lines.  Also,  sit the washer and steam feature dryers in their own overflow drain pan and dump into  a sump pump crock.  We use round pans for the water heater.  Again drain into a sump crock.

Water damage provided an very large share of our insurance repair work.

Marty,

I'd say that your water supply line is the wrong length.  That sideways bow in the line really puts a lot of bending pressure on the connections.  I recommend a shorter line so the line is much straighter between the metal pipe and the toilet connection or a much longer line so that it can loop around like the below picture.  Either way, you want long gradual bends, not sharp curves.  You got 027 when you should have had 072.

Stu

We take a lot for granted.  Thanks for the public service announcement, Marty.

What a terrible way to break in your new house. Glad you didn't suffer any major trains losses and I hope nothing house wise was damaged too badly either. Sounds like you may have caught it just in time.

Another thing FWIW, we moved to a new home a couple years ago, it has a sump pump which we've never had before. Just the thought of it makes me nervous. If you have one make sure it's in good working order and consider a battery backup system in case of power outage.

Our main pump has already failed once (about 3 years old) and had to be replaced and the battery on the backup has failed as well, just got that replaced a couple weeks ago. I am really developing a bad taste for these things in a very short time.

A possible solution for this is a water leak detector.  You can get them at Home Depot.  It is a small plastic box about 4 inches square and about 2 inches thick if I remember correctly.  It is similar to a smoke alarm.  There are two exposed metal pieces on one side of the box.  You put a battery in it and set it with the metal tabs touching the floor or wherever you may incur water.  If the two metal pieces get wet or are able to conduct electricity then the alarm goes off like a smoke alarm.  I think I paid about $12 - $15 for it.  Like a smoke alarm, it may be a good idea to have several in your house.  One for each bathroom and one for the water heater, kitchen sink etc.  Maybe a hundred dollars in alarms and an occasional battery will save you a bundle in cleanup cost alone.  Of course it won't help if no one is home to hear the alarm. 

Years ago I decided it would be a good idea to replace all the toilet and sink supply lines in my parents house because one had leaked. A plumbing supply place sold me standard plastic tubing made specifically for that application.

A few weeks later one of them let loose, fortunately when someone was in the house and heard it and promptly shut it off. Back to the plumbing supply -- now they say "that kind is no longer approved". What the heck! So I replaced them all again with the braided mesh-enclosed type.

Something to be aware of because it's a disaster if one blows out when no-one is home to notice. Slow leaks can also be a big problem if they go unnoticed ...

A friend discovered a soft floor in the bathroom because the washing machine connection on the other side of the wall had had a long-term slow leak. The repairs involved some costly floor rebuilding. Be aware of your plumbing!

Not Lionelllc's picture in the post above is great advice to relieve stress on the now all plastic plumbing devices we have today with the loop in the line. The braided stainless steel connection hoses are another very good item to have.

For the water detectors mentioned by Aussteve above, there are also moisture sensors/detectors for Arduinos and maybe an alarm system could be made using an Arduino? It could possibly shut off the main water line with a solenoid valve. Maybe it could even be made to alert your smart phone or other device as well? Might also be nice to have some kind of backup power in case of power failure? Maybe not be for everyone, but something to think about anyway.

I'm glad your trains didn't suffer any major damage but I still feel bad for you.  There is nothing more dispiriting than walking down into a basement completely unaware you have a major league mess on your hands.  I know because its happened to me three different times in the last 42 years.  Each time something different.  Luckily the trains are well up off the floor. 

I had a sump pump quit sometime in the night during a downpour which led to approximately 2" of ground water in the basement.   Ruined lots of stuff.   The current system has been up graded to include a Heavy Duty Sump Pump with a Battery Back-Up Secondary Pump.  Nothing is stored directly on the basement floor.  Lesson Learned!

Chief Bob (Retired)

rtr12 posted:

Not Lionelllc's picture in the post above is great advice to relieve stress on the now all plastic plumbing devices we have today with the loop in the line. The braided stainless steel connection hoses are another very good item to have.

For the water detectors mentioned by Aussteve above, there are also moisture sensors/detectors for Arduinos and maybe an alarm system could be made using an Arduino? It could possibly shut off the main water line with a solenoid valve. Maybe it could even be made to alert your smart phone or other device as well? Might also be nice to have some kind of backup power in case of power failure? Maybe not be for everyone, but something to think about anyway.

 

Believe me I will be adding braided stainless and a relief loop to all the toilet feed lines.  I'm pretty sure that "kink" probably was a contributing factor.

Luck was with you Marty.  We had a line go out upstairs and water came thru the ceiling - just beside the layout.  BUT, it missed the entire layout, so all was well.  Check those lines!

The good news is I didn't start setting up a layout.  If I did, I have no idea how they would have gotten the padding out from underneath the layout.  I am going to weigh the option of maybe a tile floor with a area rug in place of the carpet.

Hope all works out. I handled insurance claims in my lifetime and saw all causes. Plumber negligence and product failure are two key areas. Good luck.

Also check the water lines going to your washing machine. I lost this one time, now I change them every five years. Stainless steel lines.

Gary

all my valves have been replaced with these.

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Sha...036-0000LF/202270612

and all Stainless steel lines.

I have a flood detector connected to my home alarm system; I may get a few more to install elsewhere.

Marty, I feel your pain.  Back in 2009, I had a water supply line to the refrigerator break overnight.  It ran for 4.5 hours before we detected it and caused around $8,600 in water damage.  Water even got into the furnace duct work.  Fortunately the layout was not damaged, but the carpet in the family room was a goner.  Oh well, the wife got her hardwood floors!  

Home Depot sells a braided water supply hose with a pressure sensitive valve.  When pressure changes, the value shuts off the flow of water.  It's was $30 back then.  I wish we had it instead of that cheesy PVC tube that snapped.

George

I had water on the floor in my basement from a water heater that failed.  The replacement and my second one now sit in drip pans with drain line to the sump pump.  I have an alarm on the sump pump and probably need to add another, since I had my sump pits sealed.

I had carpet central running in the basement at the time, but the plastic Fastrack roadbed saved my trains, and I caught the water before it got to the electronics.

I also had a pin-hole leak in an ice maker line.  It got some boxes and area carpet wet before I shut it down.  Still, it was a mess.  Watch any overhead lines that run over your layout.  I was conscious to avoid those areas on my last layout.  

George 

[Un]Fortunately, I don't have a basement, but I can relate. Had a washing machine line burst at 3:30 one morning (the gushing water worke me up). Was sweeping and using the rug cleaner's vacuum to clean up the water for about an hour. Use the steel-reinforced lines a replacements. If it had been in a basement (where a lot of washers reside) I would never have heard it. An automatic submersible pump (aka Sump Pump) is a good thing to have in place at the low spot in the basement.

Bob's (PUFFRBELLY) sump pump arrangement is the way to go if you have need of one.  You need to test them on a regular basis.

George S' comments on the burst protected braided lines is good.  Their simple valves react to a SUDDEN drop in pressure on the delivery side.  They won't stop a slow leak.  They are limited to a "normal" supply delivery pressure (20-60 psi) so if you have high pressure and a quick opening valve they will shut down. 

You can get cheap disposable leak detectors (~4 for $15) to spread around to leak prone areas.  They are one-shot so you can't test them.  Also, since most of the alarms are audio you must be around to react.  To solve that you need to get an automatic shutoff valve for your main or fixture. 

BIGDODGETRAINS' new valves are quarterturn ball valves.  It is a good idea to replace the multi-turn ones as their washers to go bad,

Also, you need to check any drain lines from collection pans. 

Jan

Marty,  glad to hear that there was no damage to the trains themselves!

Another potential source of water is the basement could be the septic drain itself.  I know that our washer discharge is an open pvc pipe about three feet above the basement floor.  This septic line of course gets the washer discharge and also the kitchen and bathrooms waste water.  We have a wooded back yard and once in a while the septic pipe out to the street get clogged with roots and needs to be routed.  Usually, the sign this needs done is water flowing up from the washer discharge and water all over the floor near the washer!

Jim