CAPA and Plumbing

I recently moved to a new home. There have been a few issues–okay problems—with our new surroundings. I’d like to share some of these events and apply some lessons learned to CAPA (corrective and preventive actions).

On night one, my wife was drawing a bath. A friend and I were watching TV directly below the bathtub and started to feel a steady drip of water from the tub. Upon investigation, I found the root cause: water was dripping from the plumbing around the tub’s drain (actually, I did not thoroughly isolate the exact root cause of the leak but isolated its location).

• Corrective action: Put a container under the plumbing to catch the drip.

This was definitely a “band-aid” solution and did not resolve the problem.

A few weeks later while in the kitchen, I stepped in a puddle of water around the sink and dishwasher. At first, I thought that the dishwasher might be leaking (this has happened to me before). But I decided I needed to perform a more thorough root cause investigation. I opened the cabinets below the sink and found more water. Five more potential root causes became possibilities: garbage disposal plumbing, cold water supply line, hot water supply line, sprayer supply line, and sink drain. Eventually, I determined that the leak was coming from the hot water supply line. But where? More investigation. I found some corrosion and a very small leak coming from the ferrule nut connecting the faucet supply line to the main hot water supply line.

• Corrective actions:
• Soak up the water to prevent further problems.
• Shut off the water supply lines.
• Remove the ferrule and wrap the connection in teflon tape (another “band-aid”).
• Preventive action: Call a plumber to repair the damage. (The plumber also isolated the root cause of the bathtub leak and repaired this).

Fast-forward another couple weeks. While putting my daughter to bed, I noticed that her bathroom floor has a huge bubble and was warped. I quickly thought this was water related. I ran to the basement below the bathroom and confirmed evidence of water damage on drop-ceiling tiles. At the time, I attributed this problem to a wall-paper steamer that my wife was using directly above the bathroom.

• Corrective actions:
• Shut off water supply to the bathroom.
• Stop using the wall-paper steamer.
• Use fans to help dry the water from above and below the leak.

 Twelve hours later, it was obvious that the corrective actions were NOT effective in resolving the issue. It was also apparent by the volume of water that the root cause was not the steamer (I owed my wife an apology). The supply lines were investigated more closely, and a small leak was identified at the hot water supply line under the bathroom sink (starting to see a trend?).

The lines feeding to bathroom were completely disconnected and capped. The root cause was found and now damage assessment and control was necessary. The vanity was removed and linoleum was peeled back. The sub-floor decking was saturated with water.

• Preventive actions (for additional damage control):
• Remove linoleum and top decking in order to air out and help dry up the standing water.
• Remove drop ceiling tiles in the basement to prevent additional damage.
• Place buckets under the drips.
• Corrective actions:
• Call a licensed professional to assess the damage and to provide an estimate to fix the problem and damages caused.

 I started to get a little tired of working on the corrective side of things and decided to do a little inspection of other water supply lines–specifically hot water lines. I found another small leak in another bathroom. This required another band-aid solution but was more preventive in nature:

• Preventive actions:
• Remove ceiling tiles below this source to prevent damage.
• Place a towel and bucket under this supply line to catch drips.
• Call the licensed professional to include inspection (and if necessary) of all plumbing and supply lines.

 Of course through these experiences, I’ve learned some valuable lessons:

1. When a problem occurs, thoroughly investigate the root cause and determine impact. My first guess was not always right. Experience is valuable but should not be used as the sole source for determining a root causse.
2. If a problem occurs in one location (or with a product), there is a good cause it’s happening somewhere else. Investigate these other sources to prevent future problems.
3. Just because a house has passed a thorough home inspection by a licensed and experienced inspector does not mean there are not problems.
4. Fix and deal with problems as soon as possible to correct and prevent as much damage as possible.