The Leak, Part II And III

Like I said, we had water leaking from our bathroom ceiling, which I thought I had fixed by straightening out the vent stack.

Well, next day I noticed water dripping again, but from the other side of the ceiling. My first thought was “WTF!?” Then I crawled back into the attic and checked the stack. Wasn’t it. Then I checked a duct that ran over the leaky spot. That, I thought, was it: Condensation on the outside. I found a small tear in the insulation, fixed it and thought that was it.

Nope. Later that day I went back upstairs to check it and although it was fine the stack was filled with water again. Now I was really confused. The only way for water to get in there is from rain and it hasn’t done that in two weeks. I had no idea where the water came from.

I looked around some more and noticed the pan under the a/c had an inch of water in it. I didn’t think that was normal so I called my step brother – who works in a/c repair – and he said my drain probably had a clog. Because the a/c produces water, there’s a drain from the unit to let it out. Where the drain goes is the key: To the stack. Somewhere below where the a/c drain joins the stack, a clog developed, backing the water up the stack and the a/c drain. That was the problem.

Of course, we still had to fix it. My step brother used his freon bottle to blow air through the drain. We thought that did it, but the next day the water stopped again. We blew it out a second time. We also cleaned out the inside of the unit to prevent more gunk from flowing down. Then I got on the roof and poured a bottle of industrial strength drain cleaner down the stack. After letting it sit for fifteen minutes I flushed it with the garden hose. That, so far, has done it. It’s been a day and the water is still flowing freely through the drain.

Now it’s time to wait for the next problem.