Hot water Heat repairs and warranty Q

Salvatorparadise

Hey Everyone, we just closed on a 1921 four-square home last week.



We stopped by the house today and I fired up the heater - it had been off because there is a cracked water pipe that we're waiting to have repaired. The seller thought it should be off because as she understood it, the water supply feeds water to the heating system.



I determined that it's only for occasional replenishment, so turned it on to warm up the house, without turning on the water.



About 15 minutes later, most of the downstairs radiators began to leak from cracks at their bases on the fin, and after about 30 minutes - when pressure in the system built - we experienced a large amount of water from an apparently broken pipe above the dining room. We determined it is the water pipe to the radiator in the back bedroom upstairs. The bathroom radiator downstairs also sprayed water from an obvious crack. The upstairs ones did not get hot because I turned the heat off off as soon as water moved upstairs, when it began to pour from above in the dining room. As soon as I shut down the heat, all leaks stopped.



We had seen a ceiling crack and some signs of water damage on the living room ceiling, but we chalked it up in a past old leak someplace. Anyway, this clearly was an issue at some time in the recent past for the seller. And it certainly explains why the selling Realtor never, ever turned the heat on and up in that house at any time. We're disappointed these problems didn't come to light during the inspection, and would now recommend that any inspector examining a pressured heated water system give it a full 40 minutes or so to come to pressure so leaks can be found. Anyway, we of course didn't know about any of this before buying, and it wasn't on long enough during the inspection to determine the problem.



After recovering from the heart attacks we both had when our dear new home sudden began showing severe signs of the ebola virus, we thought over our options.



We do have a warranty from American Home Shield which the seller paid for. It covers plumbing, heating, undetected pre-existing conditions, rust and poor maintenance, so we're confident that we're covered. But I have read a lot of online horror stories about warranties and AHS.



Anyway, we need to have it fixed ASAP, whether it is through AHS warranty or out of our pockets. What kind of money does it typically take to patch (or replace?) a hot water system heating pipe in a ceiling? If warranties are often a nightmare to use and result in shoddy work, we may just try to pay this ourselves.



What about radiators. They are cast iron. Can they be sealed with a weld, or must they be replaced? What does it typically cost to fix them?



I'm sure there must be some legal recourse against the seller, but my guess is that such actions would cost more than the repairs of the heating system.



We bought several large space heaters and run them throughout the house now to keep it warm. We suspect the seller idiotically turned off the heat either last winter or late this fall, when she had moved out, and cracked some things because of how cold it got. We're in Ohio. We aren't living in the home now, we own another home one town over.



Anyone have any thoughts on the cost of these types of repairs? Or whether warranties work on this front?



Thanks



Adrian

Salvatorparadise

baseboard may be my option

As I research online, I'm getting the feeling that baseboard may be my option. It seems prohibitively expensive, for us, to replace old radiators. Baseboard is so much cheaper. Argh.

icesailor

Warranty Question:

Before you go much farther, if you paid for a pre-purchase home inspection and the inspector didn't pick up all this obvious stuff, I would be hoping the inspector has a lot of liability insurance. There is no way that this inspector should have missed this stuff. I hope that you paid for this inspector and not the RE agent. I hope you had your own lawyer at closing that YOU hired acting for YOU and not the Real Estate agent because THAT lawyer isn't representing YOU, he/she is representing the seller and RE Agent.

I would IMMEDIATELY find the meanest, most obnoxious Lawyer you can find to help you out. It will cost you thousands and thousands of dollars to fix this. I, personally would have made the seller fix the "cracked pipe" and had the water on at signing.

Over the years, I have had quite a few customers sell their houses. Often, the houses have been drained because the closings are in January. The buyers lawyers require that all systems are working properly with all water, heat and electricity working. That's after a prior home inspection.

Used houses are like used cars. There's always something wrong with them.

Real Estate Agents are like used car sales persons. They are always trying to put lipstick on a pig and telling you it is a winning thoroughbred race horse.

Get a lawyer. Try to get out of the deal. It was misrepresented to you. Don't even try to start fixing it until you have some sort of agreement. That house froze up because someone walked away from it. Leaving the problem to someone else. YOU.

I've fixed up frozen houses more times than you can imagine. My bills are in the thousands. I've seen houses with damages in the tens of thousands.

Get a Lawyer.

Salvatorparadise

OK

Thanks Icesailor. We did hire the inspector ourselves, and we do have a real estate attorney who represented us as we bought the house and at closing. He was very helpful.

MIke_Jonas

Don't forget the Pro

Don't just blindly start putting in finned tube baseboard, at least not without a room by room heat loass calc.



I've seen and repaired numerous foreclosed or vacant properties where the gas to the house was shut off (non payment). Cracked pipes, cracked radiators. None of it repairable, other than taking it out.



Some buildings have such a high heat loss that wall to wall baseboard is not enough to heat the space. I use panel radiators.

Salvatorparadise

heat calculations

Thanks Mike - I had read about this - calculating the output of existing radiators before deciding on what they would be replaced with. We'll make sure we are vigilant on this front.



And by the way, sorry for the pricing Q's. I found this forum through google and it took me straight to the wall. I missed the main page note about not asking for prices. My bad.

Salvatorparadise

the break

we have had to finish domestic water for the past few weeks, but will get into the heating system tomorrow. I found the leak that is in the ceiling. A burst at the elbow where the pipe curves up to go to the radiator.



Is this characteristic of freezing?



[

Mark Eatherton

Uh, yeah... That will be problem....

When water freezes, it expands by 1/5th it non frozen volume. If completely contained, it will generate pressures upwards of 20,000 pounds per square inch.



Bummer....



ME

Salvatorparadise

All Fixed

A month and a whole lot of work later, we're about fixed and finished now. Two elbows were blown out going to one upstairs radiator. Plumbers went up into the ceiling and fixed. Same deal in the living room, both 90 degree elbows blown out. Fixed those. All other piping OK in this 2144-square foot house. All downstairs radiators done for. Huge living room radiator and pretty big dining room radiator shot. They were 1700 pounds in total of scrap. Smaller rad in pantry shot. Teeny tiny bathroom rad shot. Pulled them all out and capped to the the system tested. All pipes that were repaired held, and so did the others. By some miracle, as we pumped to the upstairs, all four upstairs radiators survived this several week freeze up, as did the boiler. Water line coming into the house froze and burst at the gauge, but by some miracle the boiler was OK. Had the guys do some work on the boiler while they were at it. new expansion tank, replaced absolutely old and nasty parts of various sorts in the piping. Put in a new gauge, the old one was completely unreadable. Cleaned the burners.

This company, god bless them, in our city are real pros at this stuff, we had to go through a couple of heating/plumbing co's before we felt like we had someone who knew hot water radiant heat. They also had radiators in storage, old ones that work, and they managed to put a couple together for the living room and had one for the dining room, same with the pantry. All the same size/shape/btu etc. that was a miracle, too. Got those loaded in and installed. All new valves put on all the radiators. One more rad to put in, the small one , this week. But we're pretty much done.

Heat is on, house feels good, warm and toasty, even, balanced, nice!



So THAT is the update. We're broke now, but boy the house is cozy!

Karl_Northwind

broke?

Please tell us that you are going to be able to recover some or most of the cost from the seller's parties?

glad you found a real pro, you shouldn't have been required to pay them, someone else should have.

please tell us some more, or if legal details are still in the works. 



thanks

karl