File under: Plumbing

What the hell? Last night I came down to my office on the 1st floor to discover the ceiling above had leaked, covering my desk and the floor (and thank god not my computer) with water. The culprit, we soon found, was the laundry room, directly above. Behind the washer, the wall, floor, and pipes were covered in water, and we assumed that a pipe had failed, as that’s right where the drain from the washing machine is — and we’d just run a load of laundry. (It was also raining at the time, but there didn’t appear to be anything wrong with the walls and the cieling was dry.)

Now here’s where it gets odd. We call the plumber who installed this all 2 weeks ago. He won’t come out unless we can visibly see that his pipes are leaking and not the washing machine itself. So we run another load of laundry, fingers by the off button just in case. No leak.

So what the hell is going on here? Our best explanation is that maybe there was a clog in the pipe and that it temporarily caused the drainpipe to leak (there’s a rubberish connector hose from the washer drainpipe to the copper pipe on the wall), but that it later got cleared so the leak didn’t recur. Is that possible? Does anyone who reads this blog know anything about plumbing? This is more maddening than the Oscars.

Meanwhile, I’m trying to dry an entire washing machine’s worth of water from out of my carpet. Any suggestions besides towels and a dehumidifier?