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Pipes to Attic? Old House Mystery.

22K views 20 replies 11 participants last post by  smalpierre 
#1 ·
Hey all,

This is more of a fun question than anything super professional. I need to start with some background though. My wife and I just bought an old house that was built in 1935. Fixer upper for a good deal. Naturally, that means I get to put a lot of my professional skills to use on my own place now. Structurally she's a beauty, but there are definitely some issues to be sorted out.

The plumbing is one such issue. There are pipes everywhere. Lots of fitted galvanized stuff that was disconnected and left in the walls when someone decided to re-plumb the house. They only half re-plumbed it though, as some of those old pipes are active yet, and some aren't. Some aren't hooked up to anything, but are capped off at the end, so there's still active water pressure in them. It's kind of a big maze where you try to follow the pipes and find out where it all goes, and what's working, and what isn't, occasionally knocking a hole in a wall to find out WTH is going on.

The house also has a hot water boiler and old-timey radiators, which I really like.

Tonight I started to consolidate the mess and remove a lot of the old stuff in preparation to run some new water lines. Some of the old pipes are running in exterior walls. Did I mention they're 2x4 walls, and there is NO insulation in the entire house? I don't know how the place didn't turn into a big geyser on one of our cold MN winter nights.

Here's the mystery part. The house has a walk up 3rd story attic, and the pipes run up there, where they poke up out of the floor and are capped off. Not only that, but they're way bigger up there - like 1 1/4" OD, and they decrease in size as they go down the house - down an exterior wall, of course, with several branches going off to the bathroom and down to the kitchen. In the basement they're only 3/4". It's like they plumbed it in reverse, and had a water heater up there or some kind of gravity feed tank.

I Googled it, and thought there might have been an expansion tank up there for an old steam boiler, but really don't know much about that stuff. Plus, the pipes aren't part of the radiator system. They were tied into the regular water system. I've already got an old disused expansion tank hanging in the basement joists above the boiler - which is new and has its own small, modern tank.

AND - the attic joists weren't beefed up for extra weight. They're just 2x6s. 16" on center.

So now I'm just curious as heck about it. Someone on here knows what's up, I can feel it.

Cheers,
-JR
 
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#2 ·
One theory

Back in the day, when municipal water systems were new, head pressure varied a LOT which was hard on plumbing fixtures, so most old houses had a storage tank in the attic to keep head pressure steady. In most old houses, there'd be an old lead-lined oak tank strapped to the rafters with a float (just like a toilet tank), so incoming water supply was turned off when the tank was full.

So water came into the house and went to the attic first, where it filled the tank way high up, and then was distributed to the rest of the house.

That's my theory on those pipes.

The problem with that theory is 1935 is kind of late for that. These attic tanks were more common in the early 1900s. Are you sure of the date of the house?

Plus, it's not legal to talk about a newly purchased house without posting some photos. :)

Rose
 
#6 ·
Rose - I think you might be on to it. That seems to be a likely conclusion, as the pipes are tied to all of the old plumbing in the bathroom and kitchen.

Kent - that would be really cool! Except there doesn't seem to be any evidence of gas lighting ever in this house. Lots of knob and tube wiring (some active... :001_unsure:)

BCC - that's the other possibility, but again, none of the pipes are tied into the boiler system. Of course, that doesn't mean it wasn't so. Just seems like a convoluted way to pipe water from the boiler up to the attic. Before last night, you could put your hand on one of those pipes and it was warm. It was still tied to the hot water heater and the warm water naturally rose up high in the house.

And Rose, here's a teaser for you.
 

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#7 ·
Are you sure that house was built in 1935?

The foursquare had fallen from favor in the early 1920s, and they were still being built, but they were far less popular.

The house pictured looks a little like an Aladdin Charleston, but it's not quite right. Those three windows in the attic are more indicative of Gordon Van Tine.

BTW, glad I guessed right about the pipes. I *do* know a little something about old houses. :)

Rose
 
#11 ·
I gotta side with Rose here. Storage tanks up high were not uncommon.

As far as why the pipes didn't freeze on the exterior wall, you answered that question with the comment of no insulation. Pipes don't freeze when the are surrounded by warm air.:thumbup:
 
#15 ·
Here's the real poop:

Many moons ago, some hack came along and suckered the HO into doing some plumbing work. In order to jack the price up, he installed this mystery run.

He gave it some 'official'-sounding name, which, unfortunately, has been lost to the ages. The gullible HO was more than happy to have this 'magic' pipe in his house. After all, it worked just fine, increased the property value, and made all his neighbors envious.

As the hack was headed to the bank, he giggled to himself and thought, "Man....... some doofus years from now is gonna wonder, 'What the hell is that for?'"
 
#16 ·
I vote for storage water supply tank.:thumbsup: I have heard of it before but have never seen one in a home. There are some cabins out on some of the lake that use storage tanks for hot water. What they do is use plastic 55 gal. barrels and paint them black and put them on a stand 15'-20' up in the air in direct sunlight, pump lake water to them and use it for showers.
 
#20 ·
Can be dangerous having a plastic cold water storage tank in the loft. If the stat in the hot water cylinder is faulty the water can boil up and travel up the vent pipe into the tank which then melts and bursts. People have died when lying in bed under the tanks when this happened.
 
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