Did I Break Something? vid

January 25, 2009

A while ago i took a shower after playing some music. but when i got out something cold as hell was dripping on my head, i look up and theres water leaking from the ceiling. im thinking now, how in the hell does this happen? well that never really happened again but the ceiling has had a bulging bubble that ran straight across it. i ignored it since it didnt affect anything.

So today i walked into my bathroom and saw these 2 cracks in the ceiling that i never noticed before. i played Grippin' The Grain and the ceiling shakes...well alot more than i think it should. do you think i broke a pipe or something?

heres a video for reference, skip to about half way.

99vic · January 25, 2009

it looks like a shitty patch job to me. i doubt your computer system would do that.

January 25, 2009

it looks like a shitty patch job to me. i doubt your computer system would do that.

2 polk floorstanding speakers and 2 aiwa mini-towers. a total of 12 speakers. in addition to my 12" 225w Mitsubishi subwoofer. but the bathroom got redone like 6-7 years ago, i dont see why all this would happen now

audiofanaticz · January 25, 2009

i doubt your computer system would do that.

x2

The bubble is cause by water like you said.

I wonder if your house is a 2 story or if there is a attic above your bathroom.

Because it could be a few things:

1) So either you have a badly insulated attic that is allowing your pipes to maybe freeze from the cold.

2) Its a 2 story home, usally in 2 story homes the bathrooms are in the same spot upstairs and downstairs to run the same plumming, maybe something upstairs is leaking and causeing damage on the 1st floor ceiling.

3) Something Ive seen A LOT with do-it-yourself people and home renevations. They install a exhaust fan to help with removing smells from going poop, or the steam from nice hot showers. Half the time when people put these in, they make a hole the right size for these units to fit in the ceiling, and hook them up and say done. BUT.... They hook up no exhaust to the fan, because it should vent to the outside of the house, and these people just let them vent into the ceiling or attic causing nothing but problems. If you take a hot steamy shower and vent that air into a cold attic your going to have water vapor that is going to want to come back down. Its hard to tell becuase of the video quality, but it looks like a drywall ceiling from the way the bubble looks, so it may get moldy fast!

My suggustions are to go to your fuse panel, turn off the electricity to the bathroom, goto your bathroom and ensure power is off. Find your self a work light and pull down the light/fan assembly. You will know right away if its vented or not once you pull it down, if its not vented thats your problem. Otherwise if it is vented stick your head up into the ceiling and look towards where its leaking see if you can visually see any pipes that maybe shooting water.

IF it is a broken pipe, it will be leaking more water when the shower is not in use since there would be more water pressure inside it. So it would be a consistant drip, and would barly drip when your using the shower or whatever that pipe goes too.

David · January 26, 2009

sure its not condensation?

January 26, 2009

x2
The bubble is cause by water like you said.

I wonder if your house is a 2 story or if there is a attic above your bathroom.

Because it could be a few things:

1) So either you have a badly insulated attic that is allowing your pipes to maybe freeze from the cold.

2) Its a 2 story home, usally in 2 story homes the bathrooms are in the same spot upstairs and downstairs to run the same plumming, maybe something upstairs is leaking and causeing damage on the 1st floor ceiling.

3) Something Ive seen A LOT with do-it-yourself people and home renevations. They install a exhaust fan to help with removing smells from going poop, or the steam from nice hot showers. Half the time when people put these in, they make a hole the right size for these units to fit in the ceiling, and hook them up and say done. BUT.... They hook up no exhaust to the fan, because it should vent to the outside of the house, and these people just let them vent into the ceiling or attic causing nothing but problems. If you take a hot steamy shower and vent that air into a cold attic your going to have water vapor that is going to want to come back down. Its hard to tell becuase of the video quality, but it looks like a drywall ceiling from the way the bubble looks, so it may get moldy fast!

My suggustions are to go to your fuse panel, turn off the electricity to the bathroom, goto your bathroom and ensure power is off. Find your self a work light and pull down the light/fan assembly. You will know right away if its vented or not once you pull it down, if its not vented thats your problem. Otherwise if it is vented stick your head up into the ceiling and look towards where its leaking see if you can visually see any pipes that maybe shooting water.

IF it is a broken pipe, it will be leaking more water when the shower is not in use since there would be more water pressure inside it. So it would be a consistant drip, and would barly drip when your using the shower or whatever that pipe goes too.

yes it is a two story house, ive been in the attic and the house central air is pretty much above the hallway. there is an exhaust shroud going to the outside of the house im pretty sure from the last time i checked up there.

is it safe to continue taking showers? ive only taken about 4-5 of them because ive been using the shower upstairs since i was worried about what would happen if i kept on using mine. last time i took a shower, after this video, there were random little drops of water in different places all over the ceiling, about 15-20 of them...the thing is they were brown too.

AI James · January 26, 2009

id poke the buble with a bucket underneath and see what is causing the issue

a_steezy · January 26, 2009

same exact thing happened in my friends house, there was a pin sized hole in his copper pipe and it caused that, the bubble ran across his ceiling and was dripping and started coming down his walls

they had to cut a nice sized section out of his ceiling to find the leak, sealed it up and redid the ceiling... good luck mang