Just remember, when you stop one leak, God will provide you with another… I think that’s the proverb. At least that seems to be the appropriate one for this house.
For those of you not currently enjoying the wonderful heatwave up here in the Northeast, you’ve also just missed out on one frightening bit o’ thunderstorm that hit these parts. We’re talking non-stop thunder, lightening strikes that seemed only blocks away, winds that sent rain horizontal, and hail. That’s right, freakin’ hail. I don’t know about you guys, but I honestly can’t remember the last time I saw hail around here. While it may be common elsewhere, that’s freaky weather for me.
Thanks to our recent gutter cleaning, all of the basement leaks appeared to be holding well. No big deal considering how quickly these vicious storms can pass. But I kept hearing some strange noise along with the howling winds. Eventually I tracked it down to a window at the top of our stairs – one which we, of course, just recently talked about replacing. I’ve seen it leak a little before, but after five minutes of the torrential downpour outside the sill was overflowing and a stream of water was heading down some steps. Oh joy, because I just love every square inch of my house constantly being under threat of a random soaking.
Fortunately a bunch of extra towels and an old comforter stopped it up. But it got me thinking of the water issues in this house and how they keep staying one step ahead of me:
- Initial water found in basement.
- All boxes are moved to dry locations.
- Dry locations quickly become wet, too.
- Front gutters are cleaned stopping the leaks.
- Major storm dumps enough water to cover the entire basement floor – outright mocking my previous work.
- Basement is cleaned to the point that only major storms will affect it – good enough for me.
- Damp sheet rock is discovered in soon-to-be-built nursery.
- All gutters are cleaned, no more dampness in soon-to-be-built nursery.
- Water heater EXPLODES filling basement with 2-3 inches of water.
- Water heater is replaced. Everything in the house is now dry.
- Upstairs window starts flooding stairwell…
WTF! Could I just go back to some of the non-water related homeowner problems? Wait, we’re just about to renovate the kitchen. So please, a reprieve on homeowner woes. I beg of you!
luckily we didn’t get the hail. (yet?) but i LOVE that 5 minutes after a really loud lightening strike we get the firetrucks wailing down the street.
keep dry(er)
Dude, you need to install a creepy service elevator in your place. When your daughter (who will likely have dark hair) gets older we can flood the market with no end of crappy J-horror remakes.
Little girl + water + elevator = selling the rights to a major US studio so they can remake it starring Mary Kate Olsen.
SCORE.
I see your leaking window and raise you a pipe.
Monday night, right after the applicance company performed a dryer exorcism, so it no longer turned on & off randomly, I noticed that a joint in the waste pipe from the kitchen sink (the pipe that crosses diagonally through the finished part of the basement, providing amusing injuries for tall people) leaks when large amounts of water are dumped in the sink.
It’s always something.