Best way to clean out the garage?

[Paratus]

Out of all the ways to clean out the garage where would you guys rate drilling holes in not one but two water lines including the house incoming waterline?

Guess my stud finder is really more of a pipe finder. FML.

 

[Ken g6]

:doh:

Stud finders look for metal. Specifically the metal in the nails in a stud. Well, you found metal.

 

[PottedMeat]

how much water made it in? had to run to the street to turn the city valve?

 

[Paratus]

:doh:

Stud finders look for metal. Specifically the metal in the nails in a stud. Well, you found metal.

You would think so but these are PEX flexible plastic tubing. 10 of them all bunched up.

I thought I was safe because I was drilling a foot up and over from the manifold.

In hindsight a dumb move on my part.

Luckily PEX is fairly easy to fix.

 

[brianmanahan]

this week on "this old house" with guest star @Paratus:

 

[Carson Dyle]

:doh:

Stud finders look for metal. Specifically the metal in the nails in a stud. Well, you found metal.

Only the cheap magnetic finders do that. Most electronic ones detect changes in density and easily find wooden studs. Not only find the studs, they let you determine where their center is.

 

[Paratus]

how much water made it in? had to run to the street to turn the city valve?

It sprayed for a good couple of minutes. I first tried to shutoff each line from the manifold individually.

(Example PEX manifold - I drilled roughly where the blue tubes are bundled in this example.)

That’s when I realize I hit two lines, because the spray into the garage got worse when I shut off one of the lines.

I realized I hit the incoming line after I shutoff all the cold water lines and it was still spraying all the way across my two car garage.

I then stupidly tried the city water meter shutoff with a regular wrench first. Couldn’t get it without the appropriate water meter tool.

Then I ran up and turned it off from the valve at the house.

The fix was pretty easy. I had to cut out a 2ft by 8inch section of sheet rock. Then I had to cut the zip ties holding the bundle of tubes together.

For the 1/2inch incoming line I cut out the part with he hole and used a Sharkbite 1/2 to 1/2 inch linear fitting.

Costs like $5 and pushes on making a water tight seal.

Unfortunately smaller line was 3/8 inch and no one sells a sharkbite that small for some reason. So I had to buy one of these:

The crimping rings that go along with it and the $65 crimping tool.

Water is flowing again but now I have sheet rock to fix.

I left fans blowing all afternoon and broomed the water out. The garage wasn’t too bad since I actually keep my cars in it.

I was putting a mounting rail for a storage system when I hit the lines

 

[Paratus]

this week on "this old house" with guest star @Paratus:

Thanks I needed that.

 

[pcgeek11]

:doh:

Stud finders look for metal. Specifically the metal in the nails in a stud. Well, you found metal.

That is only the older type. All Modern stud finders work on capacitance and look for material density.

https://home.howstuffworks.com/question271.htm

 

[shortylickens]

There is only one way to be sure.

 

[snoopy7548]

this week on "this old house" with guest star @Paratus:

Don't miss next week's show, when Paratus cleans his kitchen...

 

[Pick2]

I've done some pretty Boneheaded things in My life Paratus , but drilling through a water line isn't one of them , Yet

 

[Scarpozzi]

It helps if you know where the water lines come in...now you know where it is. =)

For me, my water line comes in on the far end of the house from my crawl space opening. It's a real pain to access unless you like crawling in the dark with spiders.

 

[dank69]

Next time just use some of that cool alien technology you NASA boys are hoarding from the rest of us. I'm sure you've got a portable xray device lying around the office somewhere. Or are you guys too busy using them to check out the skirts?