A few weeks back I noticed a leak through the drop ceiling in my basement. The reason for the drop ceiling was to cover the ugly pipes that ran across the ceiling that fed to the rest of the house. I opened up a panel in the drop ceiling expecting to see a hole in one of the pipes where the water was leaking from. When I pointed my flashlight up at the pipes I noticed a drip that came from above the pipes leading me to believe that these pipes were not the source of my leak. A localized section of the floor boards above were saturated and panic set in. The leak was coming from a pipe leak somewhere in the walls or floor upstairs.

What made the situation more complicated was that it was in the same spot where the pipes fed up to the radiator and the showers upstairs. Multiple possible sources of the leak prompted me to get some outside advice. I called my stepfather and father in law and for two days we examined and hypothesized about the source of the leak, all the while the water kept dripping. I was convinced it was in the floor directly above and wanted to start ripping up the floor tiles to find the source while my step father believed that the source was a leak in the pipe in the wall that led upstairs to the shower and wanted to rip open the wall. My father in law thought the leak was traveling all the way across the floor boards from the dishwasher in the kitchen.

I was almost about to get some tools and start hacking away at the floor and walls before I came to my senses and decided to call a plumber. What happened next was both embarrassing and a great relief. Literally five seconds after I explained the problem to the plumber he shined his flashlight up at the ceiling, put his finger on the top of one of the water pipes and said, “Here it is.”

I said, “No the water is not coming from those pipes, it’s coming from up above, look at the ceiling above, it is all wet.”

“No, it’s right here. Feel it. There’s a small pinhole leak on the top of the pipe and the pressure is making it shoot up at the ceiling and then dripping back down causing the appearance that the leak is coming from above.”

I couldn’t believe it. I was shocked, the problem was so simple and much easier to fix than I had anticipated. I didn’t need a jack hammer after all!

So by now you have guessed the moral of the story. Sometimes it’s just best to pay for expert help from someone who knows exactly what they are doing. This applies to your promotional and advertising materials just the same as it does the leaks in your home. I have seen many brochure, logo and flyer disasters created by some well meaning but inexperienced clients that I was able to easily remedy. If you are not experienced with design, composition or general marketing principles hire an expert and you can avoid making costly mistakes like I almost did!

For expert help with designing and or printing your promotional and advertising materials please don’t hesitate to visit our website www.promotionlotion.com