Showerthought: That time I flooded my own bathroom floor at 11 PM

Nathan Kim · 2026-06-06T12:30:04.55637+00:00

I was replacing the old brass shower drain in my 1920s house in Portland last fall. Got the drain out fine, but when I went to tighten the new PVC one, the pipe in the wall just snapped clean off. Water started gushing out from the open pipe behind the wall, and I was standing there with a wet towel trying to stuff it in. Took me 20 minutes to find the shutoff valve hidden behind a panel in the basement. Ended up calling a emergency plumber at midnight, cost me $350 just to get them to stop the leak and cap it. Has anyone else dealt with old galvanized pipes crumbling on them mid-project?

lily_cooper4mo ago

I always used to roll my eyes at people who swore by having a licensed plumber do even small jobs like a drain replacement. Figured it was just a way to charge people for something you could learn on YouTube in ten minutes. But after reading about your pipe snapping off and the water gushing out, I gotta say I get it now. There's a big difference between the drain assembly you can see and the old galvanized pipe that's been rusting inside your wall for decades. Changing a drain is one thing, but disturbing a whole section of pipe that's barely holding together is a whole other beast. Sorry you had to learn that lesson the hard way, but thanks for sharing it.

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kai_burns734mo ago

$350 later I realized YouTube doesn't show you the rust inside the wall.

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hannahcraig4mo ago

$350 for a midnight emergency is rough. But honestly I'd rather pay that than have a plumber tell me my whole bathroom wall needs to come out to replace the rusted pipe. Sometimes DIY teaches you the limits of what's worth touching.

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