I Can't stop the rain!

So this weekend my friend and construction guru was back from his business trip.  He stopped over Saturday and together we safely disconnected electricity to two outlets so that I could remove those last two boards.  This is necessary because when the new window goes in, it will allow us to install a straight wall and gets us those precious 8 extra inches in our bathroom.  After we handled the electrical, we reviewed the work that needs to be done and I have a plan for the final demo and when we will do the plumbing and electrical.  

There was a copper pipe with our old showerhead still standing in the middle of the bathroom.  "You can take that out you know, " E said to me. I was dubious.  He assured me not to worry, and explained what to do.

Today I made the cake for our Sunday dinner, and then took out a couple of boards that needed to be removed. Then I decided not to do more because we need to have the dumpster brought back.  I thought I would remove that pipe. It was small and surely would be quick.  I got my pipe wrench and gave the fitting a turn. . . and heard water.  I could not see water, but I could hear it. The washer was going and for about 10 seconds I convinced myself it was really the washer.  Then I shut off the washer.  I could still hear water.  

I went down cellar.  My plumbing is largely concentrated in a gross crawl space kind of area of my cellar.  Over the many years my family has lived here (remember I am the fourth generation to live here) that crawl space has become the repository of things people did not want making it a hazard. The plumbing has been higgldy piggly cobbled together.  In short folks, it.is. a. mess.  And what I found when I climbed in and shone my flashlight was that a copper pipe had totally separated and was gushing hot water on the brick back exterior foundation.  I scrambled in and looked for a shut off.  There were lots of them but many went to pipes that were disconnected.   I tried pushing the pipe back into the fitting.  This resulted in giving myself a shower.  Just what one wants to do in a crawl space!  Um, maybe not.

I climbed out, ran upstairs, texted my friend, gave my phone to Elisabeth and said for her to let me know when he texted back.  I went back down and resumed my search for shutoffs.  I finally found one that slowed the flow but did not stop it.  Then I got a bucket and put it under the remaining leak.  

E arrived.  It took him a while to figure out how to stop the flow so we could work on the pipe but eventually we got it to cease.  My wife got home and she knew where the main shut off to the house was and that helped.  He showed me how to fix the mess, at least temporarily.  The piping is both old and not really done correctly. And all the weird little shutoffs really need to be consolidated and  a different kind of shut off used.  The reason the pipe came apart when I used my wrench was because they were not fit together properly.  The pipe actually had to be cut so it would fit in properly. We got it fitted and soldered.  And took our  cobwebbed covered selves out of the crawl space.  E promises that when we do the bathroom plumbing we will re-do all of this and it will not be an issue again.  He also promises that it will be a half day job.  I am betting it is a full day job.