OK the obvious question is why anyone would rig a coffee maker up to a faucet.....?
“... a coffee maker rigged to a faucet and left on in a photo lab led to a ruptured water line ...”
How does a faucet left on lead to a ruptured water line?
More like the faucet was left on and flooded the place.
I guess it was too much work to fill the pot and then fill the coffee maker...
Didn't a grandmother get 20+ million dollars from McDonalds when she spilled the coffee?
Years ago, over a weekend, someone left a valve open somewhere in the air conditioning system while they were working on it. Well, Monday morning arrived, the system was turned on, and I walked into my office to find water pouring out of the ceiling. What a mess.
Even well-intentioned people make mistakes and do stupid stuff.
There are a lot of water-sensor alarms on the market that are easy to install and inexpensive to operate. Hindsight is ALWAYS 20/20!
I used to leave the fawcetts attached to the hoses of my clothes washer on all the time, until one day one of the hoses developed a big leak, probably from being under pressure 24/7.
I don’t think its unusual for people to jerry rig things right up to the edge, where it takes only one oversight to something minor to fail or for a person to forget something to cause havoc.
Smoking in bed....
Forgetiing to turn off the stove before leaving the house...
A faucet is plumbed to at most a 1/2” supply line. Most coffee makers that plumb to water lines use a very tiny flexible copper tubing. 10,000 gallons is a huge amount of water for someone not to notice. Something more here than a small supply line bursting.
My father advised my sister to get these....
She didn't and her standard rubber hoses (which come with your new appliance) sure enough ruptured and flooded the basement. One line blew
Gee you could rack up a similar bill for Haz-Mat clean-up from breaking a CFL bulb and releasing its toxic mercury.
If this mess was caused by someone making decaf. someone needs to get a rope.....
The only way this could make sense would be if someone did an Amish-rigged installation of the coffee maker using vinyl tubing not rated for waterline pressure, which subsequently burst at the beginning of a weekend.
Otherwise, the story’s garbled.