The bad news: We discovered a water leak behind the refrigerator in the last couple days.
The worse news: We pulled the fridge out, and it’s not leaking from there.
The even-worse news. It’s leaking from the copper supply line inside the wall.
The even-worse news than that. The supply line runs down the wall to the fridge, through the attic, from up another wall from the cold-water supply below the kitchen sink. So I get to go up into the attic to cut and pull copper and new attached PVC line through two walls. In south Florida. In August.
[Friday-morning update]
Huzzah! It’s not inside the wall. We just saw the water leaking from the back of the fridge when the icemaker valve opened. I just changed the inlet valves a couple months ago; the joint must have come loose. It just went from a major PITA to a minor repair.
[Update a while later]
OK, as noted in comments, I disconnected the leaking tube from the icemaker line, cut it off square, and reinserted. No joy. It appears to be leaking from the side of the fitting itself, which is integral to the valve, which costs fifty bucks (and I just replaced it less than three months ago). Sigh…
Why would that pipe leak?
Does it ever get cold enough to burst that pipe from freezing?
Is there a union or other interruption of the pipe between the kitchen sink and the fridge?
Could this line be cold-sweating and dripping condensation?
Wouldn’t it be easier to rip out the drywall? You’re probably going to have to do it there anyhow, if there’s water damage inside the wall. Oh, and PEX (cross-linked polyethylene) pipe might work out easier for you.
Sorry to hear that Rand,
My mother had a similar problem this year. She had to have flooring ripped out she’d just put in. It cost a bit more than $8000 to fix. Hopefully your damage isn’t so bad but water leaks are no small problem. Wishing you well.
If you must work in the attic, do it a couple hours before dawn, when it’s coolest. Seriously. If it’s anything like an attic in Phoenix during the summer, you can die up there if you’re not careful, trying to work after the sun’s up. Literally, pass out from 160F heat and die before you can be pulled out.
BUT – it doesn’t sound to me like you need to work in the attic. Or replace the entire pipe run. Copper is easy to repair small leaks in, once you locate the leak. Given it’s Florida, it’s almost certain not to be freeze damage which since copper’s huge virtue is that it doesn’t corrode means it’s most likely a bad solder joint somewhere.
The mildly bad news is the water may be running down the pipe quite a ways from the actual leak before it comes out where you can see it. The good news is, cutting small holes in drywall is dead easy, and patching them invisibly afterwards is only mildly difficult.
I can walk you through what you need to do, but offline is probably better. Call me.
And it occurs to me that the most likely place for the leak is right near where the fridge hooks in, from mechanical stress on the connection.
At which point, the drywall repair afterwards can be really easy, since it’ll be behind the fridge and out of sight.
There are no joints in the copper inside the walls. It’s a single flexible piece that I ran myself when I redid the kitchen ten years ago. I now wish I’d run polyvinyl instead, because that could be pulled without going above, even if it sprung a leak. Copper can in fact corrode (or rather, leach away over time, which I learned when I recently installed an RO water filter in CA, and it said, “IF YOU HAVE COPPER FRIDGE LINE, REPLACE IT WITH PV”).
As for working in this attic, I’ve done plenty of it over the years. It is miserable this time of year.
Oh, and it’s not drywall (I wish!). It’s plaster board. And of course, we just painted the wall I’d have to open up.
To be clear, which I say copper “line,” I mean flexible copper tubing.
So, it’s copper tubing, not soldered copper pipe (which I’d assumed, but no you hadn’t specified either way.) A 1/8″ line just for the fridge?
I’ve never had a corrosion problem with copper water lines, but I see on a search it happens. Chiefly galvanic, they say, sometimes flow erosion. Can’t comment on liklihood of the former – is there a place the line might be touching other metal? – but the latter seems unlikely for a fridge hookup; flow would tend to be slow and limited.
If you must replace the whole line, I’d recommend PEX. I’ve become a convert in recent years. Much easier to handle than copper tubing. Can generally handle a marginal freeze without splitting, definitely not the case for copper!
And, possibly relevant, PEX is not subject to work hardening and cracking with flexing. Which I’d look for as the problem, right inside the wall where the fridge hooks up, before deciding to replace the whole line.
If that’s the problem, the long-term fix might be to terminate the copper tubing at a solid brass attach fitting for the fridge, the fitting screwed down to a stud, to absorb any occasional tugging at the fridge line. Then again, you’re selling the place, so “good for another ten years before the same thing happens again” may be long term enough.
As I noted in the update, the problem turned out to be at the inlet valve to the icemaker. I pulled the tube, cut it square, and reconnected, so I’ll see if I fixed it next time the machine asks for water. With regard to copper failing, a reverse-osmosis system is so pure that its output actually absorbs the copper from the pipe over time, resulting in eventual failure, but that’s not a problem here, because it’s getting tap water, then feeding to a separate filter in the fridge.
Florida sucks – no two ways about it. I lived there for 9 years and got out the moment I could.
Rand you have my sympathy.
I lived in Orlando for three years and want to move back. Maybe it’s the whole “t-shirt and shorts in January” thing.
Yeah Ed I understand. A lot of people love the heat. More power to you.
I can’t stand it. And I don’t mind the cold and snow at all. Heat just makes me lethargic and sweaty and miserable.
You can go with t-shirt and shorts in January in Fla.
There’s nothing I can do in July and August but stay in AC. Even walking around in a bathing suit isn’t nearly enough. And I can’t sleep in the heat.
Clicked the “Donate” button, and it says recipient currently unable to receive funds.
“I wanna tell ya ah story …. bout the houseman blues”-george thorogood
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISmgOrhELXs
Oy vey! Better you than me for the whole “fix it up” thing.
Glad it turned out not to be such a difficult fix as you first thought it would.
Good luck with getting everything done and putting it on the market! Hope it sells quickly.
50 bucks!? See what happens when I wish you well?