Had a pipe burst in my crawl space last Sunday...

I was just getting ready to watch the Seahawks game when I heard water running under the house. Went down there with a flashlight and saw a copper pipe had split right at a joint, spraying water everywhere. The crawl space is only about 2 feet tall, so I had to crawl on my belly through mud and insulation to reach the shutoff valve. Took me 20 minutes to get it turned off while water kept soaking through my jeans. Ended up calling a plumber out on a Sunday, cost me $350 just for the emergency visit plus another $200 to fix the pipe. He said the joint had corroded from some old flux they used back when the house was built in 1998. Has anyone else dealt with surprise pipe failures in their crawl space?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_drew16d ago

Oh man, that sucks... I had almost the exact same thing happen to me a couple years back. Crawled under my house to check on a weird smell and my knee went right through a rotted floor joist, and I landed in a puddle of water from a pipe that had been leaking for who knows how long. The whole crawl space was just mud and moldy insulation, absolute nightmare. Cost me a fortune too, had to rip out all the old pipe and replace it with PEX just to be safe. I feel your pain on that Sunday emergency rate though, those plumbers know they got you by the balls when it's the weekend.

tessap9716d ago

Wait @miaprice is right about that being a good rate honestly. My buddy paid $600 just for a Sunday trip fee when his water heater died last fall. The crawl space army crawl thing is no joke though, I've got the scars on my back from doing the same thing. That wet insulation smell is something that just sticks with you forever.

miaprice16d ago

$350 for a Sunday visit is actually a steal. I had a pipe burst under my 1980s rambler a few years back on Christmas Eve of all times. Crawl space was barely 18 inches, had to army crawl through fiberglass insulation with my face in spiderwebs to find the shutoff. Water was pouring out of a split in a galvanized pipe behind the kitchen. Plumber charged me $500 just to show up plus $300 for the repair. The whole crawl space was a swamp by that point, had to run dehumidifiers for a week to dry it out.