It was the perfect kind of day...until shortly after we came home.
Geoff arrived home at around dinner time, and went down to the basement to get something. He then discovered that the basement bathroom (the lovely bathroom that was just competed about eighteen months ago) was flooded...along with the hallway leading to the bathroom, the toy room, and a closet. The floor was utterly saturated with water. We immediately called a plumber we know, but he wasn't available until the morning. In the meantime we had a huge mess to deal with. Unfortunately, after quickly using up all of our towels and filling our wet vac a couple of times, the carpet seemed just as wet as it was before we started. Geoff had to take all of the baseboards off in the affected areas, and in the process, some of the soggy wall paint started peeling off. It was depressing. We then discovered that when we used the water in the kitchen (which is immediately above the basement bathroom), the flooding started all over again, from below the basement shower. So clearly something's going on between the kitchen faucet and the basement shower. Sigh. We ended up having to call a restoration company to come out Tuesday night to start to dry the place out, because we were worried that the walls/drywall would get totally soaked and require repair. As it is, at least the bottom eighteen inches of the walls got wet; and we'll find out tomorrow whether enough damage was done to them to cause mold issues - in which case, we'll have to rip those walls out yet, too!
Well, as it turned out, after almost three hours looking for the problem and after making some holes in the walls, the plumber couldn't find the source of the problem yesterday. He suggested calling in a drain/pipe guy with a tiny camera, but when that person arrived, he could offer nothing further of value. The flooding stopped, and the floors have since dried out (thanks to the work of the restoration company and the gigantic fans and de-humidifiers that they left with us), but we have no idea yet what caused the flooding. I started using the kitchen sink again today, and no more flooding was prompted. Huh??
What a nuisance. And we just finished the basement build-out in the past two weeks with the completion of the school room. It took us over two years to complete the basement finishing and now this! I'm pretty sure that our beautiful, huge, white, poured marble shower is going to have to get ripped out to deal with whatever's going on underneath or behind it.
Just when you think things are starting to come together, something else happens to challenge that notion. Double sigh. But you know what, we're all safe, and it's just stuff. It'll be a pain in the butt to have to call in (yet again) shower installers, carpenters, plumbers, painters, and carpet people, but things could be so much worse.
Thankfully, I renewed our home insurance just last Friday!
What a pain! That would be very frustrating. Thanks for sharing your positive attitude and reminding us that its only stuff and everyone's safe.
ReplyDeleteOh no, i hope they will find what is going on, this is not good! We had a flood last year, 2 weeks after the bankruptcy and although it is just stuff, you still have to deal with it
ReplyDeleteGood luck and take your walls out, the last thing you want is mold behind your walls.
Good luck and i will be thinking about you, i know how it is
Maria
uuuuuggggghhhhh.... water problems are the WORST. I have only dealt with that kind of thing once -- not even as bad as you've described here -- but it was enough for me! You're totally right about it just being stuff, at the end of the day, but oh! what a lot of work and bother! Hope you don't end up having to tear out your shower. :o
ReplyDeleteAAAAGH Ruth,
ReplyDeleteI guess 'into every life a little drain must fail"... ok BAAADDD humour... you are handling this major annoyance brillantly... I certainly didn't do as well when it happened at Phil's previous residence... I'll share that nightmare sometime...
I'm praying and lovin' ya through it!
d
ohhhh, you are the 3rd person this week with water in the basement (I am one too!)...mine seems minor but might be plumbing job with the washer - thank goodness for insurance and you're right , it could be much worse. Just another one of life's annoyances - I just laughed when I found the huge puddle, turned off the water and went to work , dealt with it later.
ReplyDeleteshirley
yes, it is just "stuff", but it's still no fun. It's a hassle and it is unexpected and costly and costly on the time side of things most of all. I'm glad you had renewed your house insurance - that's a blessing, but that still kind of stinks! Our basement flooded twice just a few months after we finished it and we lost all our carpeting and some of the walls and ended up having to tear up most of our yard to re-grade it so that we wouldn't have flooding anymore. It turns out that the previous owners had lied to us (even though they knew that we were going to be finishing the basement) and that the house had always flooded in Spring! Unfortunately, because it was a grading issue, insurance did not cover the cost. So yes, I'm glad that your insurance will cover it and that it is just "stuff", but I know all too well the disappointment of something like that happening.
ReplyDeleteHang in there! When you come up from the floodwaters, please post some pics. of your homeschool room!