Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Water world

One day last week while I was getting dressed, I noticed that the cold water handle on the faucet looked crooked. As I tried to straighten it out, the handle broke right off. There is some kind of a plastic piece inside that was totally cracked apart in about three places. I don't know what happened to it but it was definitely broken.


I thought to myself, or maybe even said out loud to Hailey - "How inconvenient. What a pain. It seems like there is always something when it comes to things needing repair around our house". I am fortunate to be married to a man that can fix almost anything or knows the people to do it. So I didn't worry too much about the faucet. The hot still worked. We have another sink in that bathroom that was perfectly fine. I didn't even think to tell Trent about it until I heard that he was going to Home Depot and then I told him he could pick up the parts to fix it.


Come to find out that Home Depot didn't have the right parts so Trent had to order them online and they are in the process of being shipped to us. More inconvenience. Ha! If only that were our only problem right now....


We have had water leaks in our dining room since our house was built. Poor design? Maybe. The fact that the wrong roof trusses were delivered but the builder installed them anyway? Maybe. We have had it fixed - I mean - thought we had it fixed, twice now. I can't really blame it on an ice dam or excessive snow because it leaks in heavy rain as well. So every once in a while we will hear the tell tale drip drip dripping and know that it is time to get the buckets out again and once again our ceiling will turn a nasty brown color until it gets wet enough to start peeling off. Nice.


On Monday I kept noticing that the floor in the dining room felt wet. Really wet. Like someone took a glass of water and just dumped it. If I pushed down hard with my foot, water would pool up. Weird. I sopped it up assuming that Hailey our resident spiller took a cup of water in there or a watering can she wasn't supposed to have or anything else. It just didn't seem to be drying up at all and I didn't know if it was my imagination or if the water seemed to be spreading out. I knew it was warming up outside, but I didn't see any drips or any other indication that the ceiling was leaking.


It was ten o'clock that night when I walked through there again and my slipper soaked through that Trent and I ripped up the carpet to see what we were dealing with....


Talk about an inconvenience.




The worse leak is apparently inside the wall. The sheeting was soaked. I could wring out the carpet pad. I have a sneaking suspicion this has been leaking for years. I can remember a few years ago when I grabbed one of my platters from under the hutch it seemed to have condensation on it. I remember feeling the carpet and thinking that it didn't feel wet at all. Well, it didn't feel wet at all last night either but look what was underneath. It just wasn't getting stepped on constantly so the wet just stayed in the pad and the sheeting.

After hours of drying with the fan. Looking a little better.

Can you see the water coming out of the pad as my foot puts pressure on it?

I emptied and moved that hutch all by myself. I knew I needed to dust in there, but really I didn't need such a huge sign.

As of this morning the sheeting and the carpet pad were almost dry. I was going to finish drying them and then prop up the carpet with something so that could dry out. I was eating lunch and watching the news when Hailey ran to the window because she heard the mailman's truck. Then she screamed "Mom! Come here! Water is coming out of the ceiling!"

Our near forty degree temperatures today with the bright shining sunshine started to rapidly melt the snow on our roof. Back again were our old friends the drips - these are the nasty guys we have known all along.
Our nice dry floor with a bucket to catch the drips.


And then there were two....

Then I noticed the floor around the bowl looked really wet. More wet than it would be from over splash.


Sure enough it was coming down the inside of the wall too. See the little drips ready to fall and add to the growing puddle?

Spring can not get here soon enough.

1 comment:

dr said...

Oh dear - that is awful. Cookie sheets work well, too, and cover a large surface area. Also, if you put a towel inside your bowl/sheet to collect water it will not splash out all over the place as it drips down. Yes, I have done this before! I hope it clears up and dries out. Sorry it is such a tough week for you.