On Jan 18, 11:27*am, Jimw wrote:
On Sun, 18 Jan 2009 08:54:32 -0800 (PST), dpb
....
Let's see---if it were a 1600 sq-ft area, the volume at 8-ft ceiling
height would be 12,800 cu-ft -- ~96,000 gal (ok, that's pretty near
the 100k earlier guess) == ~~6,640,000 lb-wt
That would translate to a distributed lateral load of ~5200 lb-f/sq-ft
or 36 psi. *That's expecting the house to hold the equivalent of 2-1/2
atmospheres w/ no apparent failures (even bowing walls aren't visible
in the pictures to any extent)--ain't agonna' happen.
And, of course, the floor loading would be 500 lb/sq-ft so it would
that w/ a 40 psf design load and 2X SF still would be about 1.5X that
so at least marginally likely wouldn't hold it.
As noted earlier, there's bound to be a bunch of water in the house,
basement, etc., but I think most of the ice visible from the outside
came through the walls first, not from filling the house like a tank.
I've been thinking about this too, and doing some weight calculations.
Even if the walls did not bow or collapse, the windows would have
blown out. *This makes me think that the pipe break was actually on
the second floor. *The water ran across the floor to the walls and
down into the walls. *That's about the only thing that makes sense.
That might be why there is more water by the light fixtures than the
outlet, it came out higher first. *Of course like you said, the size
of the cutout would matter too.
It's hard to see what is inside the windows from the pics, but I'd
have to agree with you. The first thing I thought when I saw this,
was how could the glass hold the pressure. That was before doing soem
weight calculations. The leak had to be upstairs. Now why it didn't
go down the stairs? All I can imagine the house is not exactly level
and water ran toward the walls, plus if the leak was big enough (which
it must be for 100K gallons), then it was rushing down the stairs AND
down the walls. Then too, closed interior doors could have an effect
too.
I had already posted the computations based on 96,000 gal which is
close enough to 100k for these purposes...
Some probably did run out during the early stages, but I'd suspect
that most of that came out after the wall cavity between those two
particular studs filled to that level -- again, see upthread posting
but w/ a sizable break, water is filling up the walls from openings
such as aem points out of running along the ceiling and pouring in far
faster than there are openings for it to leak out.
If you ever have an upstairs plumbing leak or a upper story A/C
condenser line plug or similar, you will soon experience how water
will very soon start coming from light fixtures in the ceiling in
rooms quite distant from the actual leak source.
OBTW, one more calculation -- 100,000 gal/10 gpm/60 min/hr/24 hr/day --
7 days
All because some idiot didn't shut off the water main valve !!!!
Lets see, if it's foreclosed, then the bank owns it. I guess bankers
dont know about valves, providing heat in cold weather, and things
like that.....
Banks have so many foreclosures these days and the mortgage holder is
probably somewhere very far removed from the location of the house
since the mortgage undoubtedly was sold within weeks or months of
origination (or it may be in one of those "toxic asset" pools and
nobody even knows who actually is the holder any longer. One would
have hoped their properties overseer would have been more diligent,
but...
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