Plumbing Problems

What a disaster. My water heater broke and it caused flooding in my kitchen and part of my dining area! Ugh...

My busted water heater

It happened late one evening. I took a hot shower to get ready for bed and when I stepped out of the bathroom, I noticed that there was a lot of water on my kitchen floor and a lot of it had already flowed into my dining area. Because of the decluttering I was doing, I had lots of stuff all over the floor and they unfortunately got soaked. The water seemed to be coming from underneath my kitchen sink. As I opened the cabinet underneath my kitchen sink, I saw that water was pouring out of what seemed to be a busted pipe in my water heater. I tried turning off the water valve but it seemed to be stuck. This was bad.

I got one of my buckets and placed it beneath the pouring water to prevent more flooding. I then called our building front desk and asked the guard on duty to help me reach out to someone from engineering. I told him my situation and that I needed help urgently. As soon as I placed the intercom down, I took a lot of towels to dry some of the wet items, absorb the water on my floors, and to try and control the flow of water and prevent it from spreading even further into my pad.

Thankfully, our building engineering team has a skeleton force even outside working hours and someone was able to go to my unit immediately and help me. Apparently, the valve wasn't stuck; it was just a bit hard to turn so the plumber was able to stop the flow of water. (How stupid was I to not try to shut off the valve just a bit harder?) After inspecting it, he said that my water heater was already broken and it was causing the problem. Thankfully, it was only the hot water pipe that was damaged. The plumber switched off my water heater and turned the valve back on. That seemed to work. However, he told me that I should not use hot water in my apartment until I get my water heater replaced. My shower and all the faucets in my unit had single levers, which meant that to turn the hot water on, you just had to turn the lever to the left. I had to actively remember that each time I turned the water on, that I should always twist the lever to the right.

Before leaving, the plumber also asked someone from building maintenance to help me clean up. Thankfully, building maintenance also has a skeleton force late at night. Having someone help me clean up the water from my floor and dry my wet items was such a big help. Still, this ordeal ruined my evening. Instead of being able to relax and go to bed, I ended up getting stressed out and losing a lot of time to deal with this mishap. I only managed to settle down a couple of hours later, a bit past midnight. The fact that I had to work the next morning made this whole situation worse, given how tired and agitated I was.

I got the contact number of the water heater supplier and I reached out to them early the next day. Thankfully, they could deliver and install it within the week. Of course, that meant that I would have to take cold showers and use only normal tap water up until then. Due to muscle memory, I actually absentmindedly switched my shower lever to the left a few times before remembering that I had to keep the lever on the right. This resulted in more water pouring out of my broken pipe. While I kept my bucket underneath the busted pipe, some water still dripped to the floor. Bummer.

When my water heater was finally replaced, I was finally able to breathe a sigh of relief. And take a much-needed hot shower.