In November 2007, we looked under the kitchen sink and noticed that there was water coming through the sheetrock. It turns out the drainage line had ruptured and water had been seeping out for some time. We initially thought it was a minor problem—we just needed to fix the break and dry it out. Turns out that water had run into the walls and under all of our cabinets and the hardwood floors. Long story short, we had to tear out the entire kitchen. Opening the walls exposed framing and wiring that stunned/horrified the city inspector. Though only some of the framing had water damage, nearly all of the framing had to be taken out because it was so bad. After about a week of work, Candace called to tell me that there was a new disaster: in reframing and re-plumbing, our sewer drain from the kitchen snapped off in the hands of the workers. We had to cut a trench into the slab to go back to a section of pipe that was good. We also had to replace a major conduit into the electrical box because the old conduit was not nearly what it should have been.
Sorry that this has basically turned into a home renovation blog. Just to mix it up, we do have a new dog….
This is the "framing" that was holding up the corner of the house.
The offending pipe...
