A construction project in your home wreaks havoc on your life. Besides all of the "extra" issues one finds, contractors can also add to the ::ahem:: fun.
Tuesday night, around 8:30, the contractors were still at the house, framing the ventilation system. There was still lots of noise... nail guns and circular saw and hammering. Then we started to smell a gas smell. Didn't think much of it except that it started getting stronger. Finally, I realized the contractors had hit our heating oil line.
I sprinted down the stairs, seeing the pool of oil at the bottom of the stairs and the nail through the bright cone orange oil line yelling in Spanish, "EH!!! EH!!! Do you know what that is?!" pointing at the oil dripping from the line. He came back at me and said, "Agua?" NO!!!!!! "Aceite?" YES!!!!!
His eyes got wide, and all worked stopped as I called the oil company 24 hour service line, Steve was outside looking for a shutoff valve on our new tank, one worker was blotting with paper towels and sawdust while the other was trying to wrap the line with electrical tape to stop the leak.
There's no shutoff valve on the tank. The tech with whom I was on the phone said to pull the line out of the tank. I'm thinking... uuuuh no, no idea how. Plus, it seemed like the electrical tape was working to stop the leak. No matter what, though, I'd be calling the oil company in the morning to get a tech out there to replace the line.
I sent the workers home (it was after 9pm at this point, and we needed to get the kids to bed!), so Steve put the kids to bed while I started cleaning. I opened the doors, windows, and whole house fan to try and air out the fumes, and grabbed a mop, Lysol, and water. And Windex. Windex cleans everything, right??
As I'm cleaning, I'm trying to figure out WHY they thought that putting a nail through a BRIGHT fluorescent orange line was a GOOD idea. And WHY did they think that was water?! And how did they NOT notice it was leaking?! I was getting angrier just thinking about each scenario...
I finished mopping the floor, and needed to change the water. Good thing we are car geeks because we have a big filter for pouring oil into containers to go to the dump. I picked up one of the buckets full of oil, it slipped out of my hands, and I dropped it. It hit the driveway, bounced, and splashed ALL over me, head to toe... hair, face, arms, legs, shoes... everywhere.
I stood there, thinking about how this had just added insult to injury, trying to decide exactly how to wipe my eyes because finding a dry spot on my shirt was going to be a challenge. And really, this night could not get worse.
I did one more round of cleaning before I went to shower. I tried a normal shower, washing my hair 2 times, once with shampoo, once with soap. Still smelled like oil. Asked Steve to get the orange scented pummus called GoJo. That got it off of my skin, but not out of my hair... and pummus in my hair was a disaster to try and get out. I went to bed so angry that I couldn't see straight, smelling like oil and wearing long sleeves to ensure I didn't get any on the sheets.
The next morning, I expected the house to have aired out. I couldn't have been more wrong. The house smelled WORSE. I got the kids ready to go to Eleanor's and kicked Steve out to go to work as the house smell was intensifying. The oil company promised they'd be out in the morning. As the smell got worse, I started to panic.
Finally, one of the oil guys who had come to install our new tank arrived. Boy was I happy to see him. I showed him the damage, and he followed the oil line to the furnace. That's when he said, "That's why the smell isn't going away.... it's all pooling right here!!" There was a huge pool of oil surrounding the base of our oil burner.
?!?!?!?!!!!!!!!
We went out to the tank, and removed the line from it. Then we grabbed the bag of kitty litter we keep for when we work on the cars and put that down. Experience lesson #1: in situations like these, clay-based kitty litter is better because it doesn't clump. The oil guy asked me to go get more, which I did.
So what happened? The oil line is actually a copper line with a bright orange plastic sheathing around it. When we taped the line the previous evening, the oil then went between the copper pipe and the orange sheathing, emptying at the base of the oil burner where the orange sheathing stops. No wonder the smell intensified.
The oil guy said this happens ALL the time; contractors hit the line way more often than you'd think reasonable. He even told the story of a guy who was trying to shoot a groundhog with a .22 and managed to put the bullet clean through the oil line instead. Oops.
I asked how to get the smell out of the concrete and my hair. For the concrete, we have to keep the kitty litter on it for a number of days, every once in while, moving it around to put a fresh batch on it. Experience Lesson #2: grind kitty litter into a powder so the dust will go into the pores of the concrete and soak up the oil. For my hair, apparently, I just have to wait it out. UGH. It has taken until today (Saturday) to not smell oil in my hair... 4 DAYS!!!!!
The oil guy replaced part of the line, added a shutoff valve on the line at the tank, bled the line, and tested the burner. We are back in business.
Before he left, I asked how to get oil off of the venting, and that's when I learned Experience Lesson #3: oven cleaner cuts the grease! Apply the oven cleaner, let it sit for 10 minutes, and then wipe it away! No residue!
We vented the house all day and all night, and the smell is gone, thankfully. The workers learned their lesson and are framing in a much different manner than before, *clearly* missing the lines with nails. The kitty litter is still down, and the project has continued to progress.
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