🦋 Plumbing trouble
Aargh... Some water is dripping out of a pipe next to the combination boiler/water heater in our basement. It is not dripping out super-fast, but probably a few cups every hour, which is a lot in the scheme of things that is our plumbing. The pipe appears to be the output of the water heater portion of the mechanism; as near as I can tell it is a pressure relief valve, described in detail on this page; the likely candidates for causing the leak are - That the valve itself is broken (but this seems unlikely since a new valve was probably put in when the boiler was replaced a few years ago);
- that the water pressure regulator* attached to the main water line coming into our house is broken (this seems more plausible);
- that the main water supply pressure for our block has really unusually high pressure today (possible I guess?); or
- that something done during our bathroom renovation broke the system somehow (seems likely and unnerving, except I can't see any logical way that would work -- the water pressure is an input to the system not at all dependent on the devices attached to the system when they are all shut off.)
It is definitely pressure -- if I turn on a hot water tap upstairs, the leak stops. (Should check whether a cold water tap has this effect, but I think it will.) Of course we cannot get a plumber on Easter Sunday; I guess I will shut off the water coming into the house this evening before we go to bed, and turn it back on in the morning.
 ... Yes, the cold water tap has the same effect. The leak seems to be getting faster, too! Hopefully it will be a simple repair; we'll find out tomorrow, I guess. I'm glad we're doing a lot in the basement these days; I think there have been periods like late last year, where this would have gone undetected for a couple of days.
*(The next day: we don't actually have a water pressure regulator, which is the source of the problem, in combination with the third bullet point above. I was assuming there was one since the linked article made it look like this was standard.)
posted evening of Sunday, March 23rd, 2008
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