Puzzling Plumbing

My poor house. It now knows what a trip to the dentist is like.

When I got my water bill in April, it was more than my summer watering bills, which is saying a lot since I live in Texas. So I called the water company, and they came and did their testing and determined that they weren’t at fault; their meter was performing superbly. The tester left me a little sheet on the door to announce his findings. The bad thing was, I couldn’t read his handwriting. My initial review of his chicken scratch marks revealed no problem. Great! But then after talking to my mom and realizing that didn’t make sense, I went for a second read. Oh, it says there is a leak. Yuck. That means it is up to me to fix.

So, a leak detection service (wish I hadn’t had to learn there is such a thing) came to run tests to determine where the leak is hiding. The plumber came with them. He took one look at my tile floors and was less than happy. I started praying immediately (why wasn’t I doing that all along?) that they wouldn’t have to drill the Grand Canyon out of my den.

An hour later, the leak was narrowed down to a five-foot area between the water heater in the garage and the half bath. Answered prayer = den is safe!

The plumber said that he hopes he can get to the pipe through the garage wall, but he may have to drill through the tile entry way if the crawl space isn’t big enough. I’m thinking that I’ll volunteer to use a jackhammer in the tiny space, if only it will save the tile, which has probably been discontinued.

My dog is less than thrilled with the sound of the jackhammer, which I can hear clearly through my Smith & Wesson earplugs. (Note: I bought the earplugs to use while taking tests, but I will remember to take them to Mount Hermon.)

Unfortunately, there’s no anesthetic for my garage wall. It is being drilled unmercifully. The layers of plaster are flying away. The bare pipes are being exposed. The broken pipe will be found. A new one will be put in its place.

As I think about this, I feel the urge to pray for God to be gentle with me as He peels back layers of my heart to expose its “leak(s)” and to gently repair the brokenness. That He would help me see the lies that I have believed and help me take them out of my mind and replace them with Truth.

. . . .

Post-op Report: The plumber found that the pipe in the garage was functioning normally. The leak was actually out at the street. The detection had produced a faulty report. After working for 5 hours on a Saturday, the plumber ended up charging me less than $200 for all of his labor and the small part that he replaced. I am extremely grateful that it didn’t cost the $1,200 that was estimated, but I am sad that the plumber spent his whole Saturday looking for a leak that wasn’t where the detector said it was.

I'm not exactly sure what the lesson was in this, but I'm guessing that this is supposed to teach me to question the "detection service" that I use in my own life before I start trying to fix things.