Best vacation... worst retrun home.

[Squirrel Girl]

That same thing happened to another cave diver I know. Something like 115 gallons wet vac-ed up when he got home. He turns off the hot water heater when he leaves now. Mine's in the garage a few inches below the house, so I'm hoping I won't have quite such a disaster (I hope I don't eat these words).

[Kelly Jessop]

turning off your water supply when you are gone for an extended period of time is a good idea.

Did that once when we were leaving for a Xmas trip,knowing we would have a hard freeze. Shut the water off at the curb,and the valve knob snapped off in the closed position. Try to talk to plumbers around the holidays to come out and fix this before you come home,that luck could have been used to win the lottery.

[diveknut]

ok mr. carlin

[Greenwood_60]

I think I have to take responsibility for this one. It wasn't some perfectly functional water heater, this thing was old, and improperly installed. My house was originally a "house", converted in to a duplex, and I turned it back in to a single family house. I replaced one of the two water heaters when I renovated the place (and refinished the now warped hard wood floors ) but I never got around to re-plumbing the house to use the single larger heater rather than the two. This thing was rusted around the base, and installed in backwards (could not see or access the panel for temperature adjustment) with no drip pan. This was a mess waiting to happen. I am able to shut the water off to that half of the house, and function completely on the other half.

It is all drying out fairly well... but I am hoping the boards settle back down when they dry out.

Water main will most definitely be OFF next time I leave town.

[Wizard]

Sorry for the water heater mess. Congrats on the certs!
We had a pipe blow under the sink the other night right before we went to bed, 30 minutes later and it would have leaked all night, ugly!
I always turn the water heater and the water supply off before I go somewhere for very long. Always been worried about stuff like that.
Let everything dry for a couple of weeks before you start to tear stuff out. I knew a guy that had a 2 inch pipe blow out in the attic of a three story house. About 3000 gallons poured down all the way to the basement. Being who he was the insurance company wanted to fly in and start ripping things apart, he politely refused as he didn't want his 5 year old 8500 foot house in shreads. After a month a carpenter came in and replaced maybe $2000 worth of stuff.

[TJDiver]

Oh man...that sux! But, congrats on the certs. I went away for a trip one time, and came home to find this really huge wetlands where my front yard used to be. Main water line to the house ruptured...ended up with a $600 water bill that month.

[BobK]

Oh man...that sux! But, congrats on the certs. I went away for a trip one time, and came home to find this really huge wetlands where my front yard used to be. Main water line to the house ruptured...ended up with a $600 water bill that month.

Kim and I had something similar. We were gone from the house for a couple of weeks. A day or so after we had left, the cleaning lady used the head and didn't notice that the valve in the tank had hung up. So water poured into the bowl and out the sewage line for about 10 days straight. We got about a $500 water bill, and a huge sewage bill, since sewage in our town is based on water useage.