Stuff A Plumber Screwed Up

During renovation, we’d created a drain beneath new patio stone, and installed a hand-held shower for rinsing beach sand off kids and dogs. We shut the water off before frost each year, and all seemed well until my son gave the dog a pre-season, early spring bath. When he went to shut the water back off, he discovered a cascade in the crawl space under the shower. —Patty O’Donnell

- Patty O’Donnell

When the shower apparatus was removed and the shingles taken off, the picture underneath wasn’t pretty. The corner sill and post, the wall sheathing, and even some fir porch decking had rotted. All the compromised wood, much of it “the texture of a rotten zucchini,” had to be cut out and replaced. Carpentry was the easy part. But what had gone wrong?