Pinhole Leak

Progress took two steps back last weekend with a pinhole leak in a water pipe at the laundry faucet. It was shooting an invisible stream of water against the wash machine and I thought it was odd that Dix would be doing a load of wash with the water splashing up on the outside of the washer. When I walked into the line of fire it became obvious what was going on. A three inch piece of pipe had failed. Fortunately I had an exact replacement in my coffee-can bone yard. However, it took hours to replace it with three tries disassembling and taping, and reassembling before the exact tolerances were achieved for distances with no leaks.

With this little setback I was just appreciating how I had the luxury of no deadlines in my home repair projects, when I was informed that one had been established for getting the wiring finished behind the stove so that it could be pushed back against the wall and out of the center of the kitchen. So that advanced my conduit bending learning curve and long-procrastinated outside ground wire installation. Now I could neatly reroute an odd ground wire that had heretofore been attached to a water pipe in the basement. Upon disconnecting it I noticed it created static in my headphones. Uh oh. Measured the disconnected potential to be 12 volts or so. That can't be good.

So, at the office, I had called the heating folks in to repair the furnace that had quit on the last day of chilly weather we had last week. This kid was a heating/AC wizard as I am proud to know enough to be able to appreciate. I asked him, by the way, does he know anything about electricity? I told him I had this stray ground wire that had a little spark to it when disconnecting from its ground clamp. He said I've got some electrons that want to use the green wire instead of the white wire - have I had any pinhole leaks in my water lines by chance? My mouth dropped open - I felt the kid was psychic! He explained I have electrolysis going on in my water pipes and it will only get worse until I correct wherever a short is coming from - check for loose wires in my old outlet boxes.

Well, I isolated the problem to the kitchen circuit that had been upgraded by the former owner. The outlet for the microwave had a loose ground wire (wrapped on the screw but not tightened). Whoa! Now the old sparky ground wire in the basement was a healthy 60 volts. What the hell? So Dix decides to heat a cup of tea before I shut everything down again. And I'm thinking, she's punched the start button, the ground's now disconnected ... DON'T TOUCH THAT DOOR! I check the voltage on the case and it's varying degrees of line voltage.

Now timing is everything. The pinhole leak breaking out when I happen to be in that room. The heating/AC wizard with prescient advice right when I needed him. The realizing of potential consequences just in time before they might of happened. I count my blessings even though I missed the warranty expiration on the microwave.