Bang, whoosh, flood aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh

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Paul B

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No, not the tank, My house. I am so lucky, no, not that I got this flood, but the circumstances.
My wife and I were getting ready to go out to our marina for dinner and my wife hears this Bang. Then she hears water running, fast. She says, what was that and why do I hear water running. I only want to hear Supermodels running but I can hear water running. I check upstairs and don't see any water running, then I go to the basement which is finished and don't see any water running. Then my wife screams AAAAAAHHHHHHH WATER IF FLYING OUT ALL OVER THE KITCHEN, DO SOMETHING PAUL, PAUL, DO SOMETHING. and she dives under there and tries to put her hands around the leak. I run to the water main and shut it off then as I turn to go upstairs I notice the bathroom looks like Noah's flood on the third day when it was raining so hard the elephants had to put their trunks up in the air to breathe. Water is pouring our of the ceiling (think Niagara Falls) . I run to get the shop vac, but it is full of dirt, so I quickly empty it and take out the filter, just as the water starts coming over the marble saddle I get the vacuum running and start to suck it up. It fills up to it's seven gallon capacity so I empty it and suck some more. I happened to take a quick look at my reef tank and most of the fish had their noses pushed against the glass just waiting for the water to rise to the top of the tank so they could escape. But that didn't happen as I am quick with a shop vac. I ran upstairs and pull my soaking wife out from under the sink and crawl in there with a flashlight. This flexable hose that I installed 7 years ago burst. In five minutes we would have been out for the evening and the basement would have filled with water and I could have then had a really big reef tank. I would have had to sell the house because there are no drains in my basement and the water would have filled to about 2' deep.
I just finished that basement last year and luckily I installed a steel, diamond plate sheet metal ceiling so it didn't get damaged. I ran to the plumbing supply to get a new hose, 10 minutes later it was done and we went out to dinner. Of course we had to leave the ceiling open to dry and everything is out from under the sink. But since I installed that sink we have been to Europe twice and Hawaii. If that happened one of the times we were away. OMG. Now, being I am always prepared I am going to run a small copper line to my furnace so when I go away I can shut the entire house off except the boiler. Then I am going to install an electric valve on my main and leak detectors all over the house so if there is a leak, the main will shut off. I already built that system under my tank and boiler, but now I will make one on my main. I only want these things to happen to me once. :jaw:
 
Thanks for sharing! I will check for rust on all of our lines! It looks as if that line had a pin hole for a while before it broke, judging by the rust. I call your experience a "God thing"!
 
Check the valves that attach to those hoses as well. I had one fail when an o-ring failed. Fortunately I was home and managed to minimize damage.
 
I replaced all the valves in my house when I bought it. So far, after 40 years, no problems. This is the first time a pipe burst. But I will be ready next time wit my leak detector system.
 

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