Adventures in Home Improvement: Water Edition

The month of March brought New Jersey colossal rains.  It brought me water in the basement and a leak in the dining room ceiling.  The basement water is under control (which is to say gone, until ten inches of rain fall again).  The dining room ceiling leak ---- seemingly caused by the rain blowing in from the east and a small gap underneath the second floor window sill siding ---- has been repaired.  All that remains is a tiny bit of plaster repair and some repainting, a task I've reserved for June when school ends and I have ample time for that brand of fun.

After all that, I figured that April would feature a whole lot of gardening and smooth-sailing, home improvement wise.  And boy was I wrong.  I learned just how wrong on Easter Sunday, when JT reported that there was a leak in the kitchen ceiling.  A leak he noticed while I was in the shower.  That shower is in the bathroom.  The only full bathroom in the house.  The one with the 1930s-era plumbing and the cast iron bathtub whose plumbing is directly over the kitchen ceiling.

This can't be good.

Plumber number 1 arrived the next day, took a brief look at the situation and it's  80 year old lead pipe plumbing, then threw up his hands and announced, "you're going to need a whole new bathroom."

This was not promising.  And while I didn't doubt that new plumbing and a bath tub would solve the problem, I was hopeful that less costly repair could be effected.  In any case, I wanted a plumber who would actually touch the plumbing before diagnosing a zillion dollar home improvement solution.  A laying-on of plumbing hands, if you will.

Enter plumber number 2, a man with the promising name of JP.  We like letter names around here and he came highly recommended.  JP took a look, ran the water through the offending leaky plumbing, and diagnosed the problem: I  needed new bathtub fixtures.  Replacements aren't available for tubs this old (and they aren't up to New Jersey code anyway).   The back up solution: caulking around the ancient bathtub fixtures.  It was just the laying-on of plumbing hands that I sought.

JP thinks this repair will work just fine, for a while anyway.  He cautions that the long-term solution to the situation is a replacement tub and brand-new, non-lead pipes.  He can do that for me and I may soon be taking him up on the offer.

And the kitchen ceiling?

 This will also be repaired, likely after the replacement tub enters my life.  So we're not yet done with the home improvement drama.....though, God-willing, we are done with water damage.

And just right there, Internet, there I have tempted the Home Improvement Gods to jack with me again.