changc12
Registered User
Hi all,
Question:
I just moved into a multi-story apartment building in Austin, TX and found out that when it was built 3 years ago they didn't route the main water supply through a chase where it would be protected. Instead, it was located in a high traffic area, the dead center of the wall in the master bedroom, where someone would commonly mount a TV across from the bed. Normally I would expect the main water supply for the entire building to be routed through a chase, in a lower traffic area where you wouldn't have much tenant contact. Does this violate any plumbing codes or is this common practice? This wall is not near a bathroom, fire sprinklers, or anything that would indicate there would be any water piping.
Background:
Upon move-in I asked the building if we are allowed to mount a TV on the wall, which they said was no problem. I asked what type of studs are used (because my last apartment used metal studs), but they said they weren't sure, maybe wood... I used my stud finder with AC/electrical detection to identify one stud in our master bedroom to test what type of studs are used by drilling a small pilot hole where I would be mounting the TV. I then found out the "stud" turned out to be the main water supply for the entire building... At the time I didn't know it was the water main, but I closed the valve to our unit (which did nothing since it was the main). When the maintenance team came, they didn't know what the pipe was or where the water was coming from. So they spent 1-1/2 hours troubleshooting where the water was coming from while my apartment flooded. After an hour they finally shut off the main water supply to the building, but 10 minutes later they turned it back on again (without rerouting or patching the leak) while trying to isolate other lines to "guess and check" which line was feeding the leak. This made the flooding worse obviously because the goal was to turn the water off ASAP, not turn it back on again. After this point, they finally determined it was the main water supply when I would think that the maintenance staff should already be familiar with the plumbing in their own building or have drawings showing the piping schematics.
Takeaways:
The maintenance team initially said that they had no idea there was a pipe there and said there is no way I would have known because this PVC pipe would show up as a stud if you use a stud finder. It seems that:
Question:
I just moved into a multi-story apartment building in Austin, TX and found out that when it was built 3 years ago they didn't route the main water supply through a chase where it would be protected. Instead, it was located in a high traffic area, the dead center of the wall in the master bedroom, where someone would commonly mount a TV across from the bed. Normally I would expect the main water supply for the entire building to be routed through a chase, in a lower traffic area where you wouldn't have much tenant contact. Does this violate any plumbing codes or is this common practice? This wall is not near a bathroom, fire sprinklers, or anything that would indicate there would be any water piping.
Background:
Upon move-in I asked the building if we are allowed to mount a TV on the wall, which they said was no problem. I asked what type of studs are used (because my last apartment used metal studs), but they said they weren't sure, maybe wood... I used my stud finder with AC/electrical detection to identify one stud in our master bedroom to test what type of studs are used by drilling a small pilot hole where I would be mounting the TV. I then found out the "stud" turned out to be the main water supply for the entire building... At the time I didn't know it was the water main, but I closed the valve to our unit (which did nothing since it was the main). When the maintenance team came, they didn't know what the pipe was or where the water was coming from. So they spent 1-1/2 hours troubleshooting where the water was coming from while my apartment flooded. After an hour they finally shut off the main water supply to the building, but 10 minutes later they turned it back on again (without rerouting or patching the leak) while trying to isolate other lines to "guess and check" which line was feeding the leak. This made the flooding worse obviously because the goal was to turn the water off ASAP, not turn it back on again. After this point, they finally determined it was the main water supply when I would think that the maintenance staff should already be familiar with the plumbing in their own building or have drawings showing the piping schematics.
Takeaways:
The maintenance team initially said that they had no idea there was a pipe there and said there is no way I would have known because this PVC pipe would show up as a stud if you use a stud finder. It seems that:
- The builders should have routed the main water supply through a chase, away from high traffic areas.
- The current owners who purchased the building should have been aware of what they bought, put policies in place to prevent something like this, educated the maintenance staff on the building's plumbing layout, or at least made the piping schematics available for them to reference rather than relying on guess and check.
- The damage to the apartment could have been isolated to just the bedroom, but because it took the maintenance staff 1-1/2 hours to figure out where the water was coming from (not to mention turning the water back on again) this ended up spreading to through more than half of the entire 3 bedroom apartment.
- Is it unreasonable to think that the maintenance team should be familiar with the location of the main water supply, been able to identify that the leak was from the water main between the high pressure and location within the building, and been able to shut off the water main within maybe 15 minutes rather than 90 minutes?
- I specifically asked about mounting on walls in the apartment, about the type of studs used, and if there are any policies I need to be aware of with regards to this in my attempt to do avoid something like this from happening. But after the leak started, I have no access to the valves outside of my unit or access to the building's piping layout.
- I just got a $14k bill from the building for the damages, but I feel that the building has some liability in this as well.
