- Joined
- Nov 11, 2017
- Messages
- 77
I returned home Sunday afternoon to find my garage where I have my mill and lathe full of steam with water dripping from the ceiling. The hot water supply line on the water heater had sprung a leak and was spraying hot water. My three year old lathe was a uniform brown color covered with rust because I had left the dust cover off. The mill, however, was virtually unaffected even though it was closer to the leak but it was covered. Fortunately, the rust is very light and essentially rubs off so I plan to disassemble it and clean and oil everything.
I talked to my buddy who is an insurance agent and he tells me that they recommend that all water supply lines be replaced every five years. Seems excessive until this happens! I even had a water leak detector with auto shutoff installed at the water heater but it failed to activate for some reason.
Lessons I learned from this:
-Use the best water supply lines you can buy and replace them periodically. Sounds like the corrugated copper are preferred by some plumbers. The one that failed was a flexible hose with stainless steel overbraid as are most of the others in the house.
-Test my leak detectors more often.
-Cover the machines when not in use.
I talked to my buddy who is an insurance agent and he tells me that they recommend that all water supply lines be replaced every five years. Seems excessive until this happens! I even had a water leak detector with auto shutoff installed at the water heater but it failed to activate for some reason.
Lessons I learned from this:
-Use the best water supply lines you can buy and replace them periodically. Sounds like the corrugated copper are preferred by some plumbers. The one that failed was a flexible hose with stainless steel overbraid as are most of the others in the house.
-Test my leak detectors more often.
-Cover the machines when not in use.