Thankful for this Messy Basement?
Absolutely!
Absolutely!
Let me explain. There was no hot water for my husband's shower Tuesday morning...
No Hot Water??
Uh, oh.
We raced to the basement... and yes, the water heater had "gone out."
No Hot Water??
Uh, oh.
We raced to the basement... and yes, the water heater had "gone out."
Don't you think someone would invent a bell tone or buzzer that would sound before something like this happens?
At any rate, there was a little creek of water that had flowed from the water heater across the south part of the basement, under the walls and into the carpet areas.
It had soaked about 1/3 of this area when we found it. Mr. Shady began using his shop vac and I ran to the phone to call our wonderful plumber/friend. Then I began using my steamvac to draw out water.
In the meantime, our wonderful plumber/friend rode up on his white stead (pickup), surveyed the situation and left for his shop to get a new, energy-efficient model he had in stock. Before you could say "Jack Robinson" 50 times (lol) or so, he had returned and began removing the old and replacing with the new!
It took about 3 hours of vacuuming before I was unable to get any more water out of the carpet. Enter our new dehumidifier and a couple of fans...
In the meantime, our wonderful plumber/friend rode up on his white stead (pickup), surveyed the situation and left for his shop to get a new, energy-efficient model he had in stock. Before you could say "Jack Robinson" 50 times (lol) or so, he had returned and began removing the old and replacing with the new!
It took about 3 hours of vacuuming before I was unable to get any more water out of the carpet. Enter our new dehumidifier and a couple of fans...
By 10:00 P.M., I was able to run around downstairs in my stocking feet without picking up a hint of moisture. Hurrah!!
The Old
The New
The entire situation could have been So Much Worse. Given that thought... I am Very Thankful indeed! :-)
22 comments:
Ugh, that would be awful! Still I wish I had a basement! ;)
Shady,
Well seems we are in the same boat almost. Today I went to change the house water filter and noticed the valve to the out going water from the water heater was leaking, I tried to fix and made it worse. Spent 4 hours trying to solder in a new valve and could not get the water to drain to get a good solder joint. So we have no water in the house tonight! Luckily its raining and we collected water to flush with at least.
Dave, It wasn't so much fun... but another reason to be thankful? 1) I'm cleaning and rearranging as I'm putting things away, and 2) it's NOT Thanksgiving, yet! (hence, no company!) ;-)
Randy, Ohmygoodness! You sound very handy!! I'm so glad this is all you have wrong, and that you can take care of it. I'd not thought about collecting the rainwater! ha! (I was downtown for awhile yesterday, so I ran to a place with a public restroom!) lol.
Kudos to your plummer friend. Being without hot water would suck. :)
Lucky you to have a hero/plumber who arrived on his trusty white steed to save the day! Like Dave we also want a basement! Glad all is better and that you have hot water! gail
Hi Grace, We had water again by noon (!) Yea!
Gail, Not only is it nice to have people that are so good at helping the rest of us in need... but it's wonderful to have them as friends, also! :-) Yep... now I'm rearranging all the furniture, cleaning, etc. so it'll even be better than it was before! (All in time for Thanksgiving!) ha.
Ugh, what a mess! I'm glad you were able to get it cleaned up and dried out without too much permanent damage.
What a great and handy friend , for all the trouble a nice story .
I am happy it worked out for you. I would love to have an area where I could leave my ironing board up to be able to use it easily.
You guys handled it well keeping your cool. Of course a friendly and reliable plumber really helps. And you right it coulda been a lot worse. I remember a flood and SEWER back up in my parents basement in St. Paul. It was 2 feet deep and.... well I won't go there! yuk
Hi Shady, I am so glad that story had a quick and happy ending! Wet carpet does sound like a total nightmare. Good thing for those shop vac thingeys. What a great space, BTW. :-)
Frances
Oh my!!! Not good! I am always scared of that happening, I don't have a basement, but you know what I mean! I am amazed at the space you have there! I would LOOOOOVE to have a basement. Houses here don't have them!
Water disasters are never easy to clean up. I am glad it wasn't worse! It is good you have a plumber friend to help you. Yeah for the fix-it dudes!!!
Lucky you! I would LOVE to have a basement. Or any place, other than a cramped garage, for storage. Basements are kind of hard to come by in the Rocky Mountains.
Anyhoo... I'm happy to hear it worked out so well. :)
Hi, all! Basements are wonderful for additional housing/storage space. But they can give the "underground" feeling with small windows, etc. To facilitate basement bedrooms, people are installing egress windows (large, easily exited windows with outside access). This home has a walk-out basement because of our hillside slope. This is a better-than-great compromise!
Troutbirder, We once had sewer backup in our basement (NOT to your parents' extent). That was NOT pleasant and the clean-up had to be so much more extensive. I'm so glad this wasn't the case!!
I agree there should be a house alarm that goes off when something like that breaks. We had a minor flood in our basement from a well water pump busting... yeah... that was fun to clean up too. At least we have a good friend who is plumber too - he fixed it without charging us labor so all we had to pay for was parts. Definitely a reason to be thankful!
Jackie, When something like this happens, we find many people that have experienced similar situations. Thank heavens for friend with special skills! :-)
Hi Shady,
It's Rosey here. I wanted to tell you that that template I used was from cutest blog on the block. They only have a few that would work with my blog and the layout I have. Best of all, FREE! And I change it all the time. I had the polka dots at one time too. I think I have ocd :o
Thanks for commenting on my blog. Happy Turkey day.
I bet you are thankful this happened before your family came to see you. I hope everything has dried out well.
I think a bell warning would be great ~ you should patent that idea! I'm glad you averted a major disaster. I had this happen to me last spring ~ luckily my basement is unfinished so damage was minimal. Enjoy your family for Thanksgiving!
So glad you managed to deal with this before it took over the rest of your basement! Thank goodness for shop vacs...they work wonders! Sounds like your steam vac did a really good job, as well. The new water heater can be one of your Christmas presents! Hope it didn't cost too much. There never is a 'good' time to have something break down, but at least it'll be in good working order for Christmas!
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