It's been over a week now and our basement has gotten worse. We've had drain people out, plumbers out, and restoration experts out here trying to determine the source of the water, which has gone from ruining one room to 4 and from possibly being ground water seeping in to sewer water backing up into the house. Everyone has a different theory, from a water utility line break above our home seeping in, to a pipe break and partial blockage outside the home. We had a master plumber up who is certain it is a break...I'm throwing my chips behind his theory. The water increases when the washer runs, which to him means the water can't drain correctly from our home and he has wondered aloud if we don't have an old floor drain somewhere that was covered when the house was renovated back in 1980. We had to remove all personal items form that end of the basement, which happens to be the part of the house we remodeled to make bedrooms for Cole and Macy! The restoration crew was able to remove the soaked pad and carpet from one room, but the other rooms remain intact but desolate. Our downstairs recreation room has been turned into a shared bedroom for now.
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| Nice moldy wall post carpet removal |
Tomorrow is a big day, when a plumber with a specialized camera on the end of a snake hose will explore all the drains to locate the leak. It's also going to be the first time our insurance adjuster will be in the home and he will be determining our fate. We've had three different people tell us that if anyone can find a leak, it's this particular crew from Pioneer Plumbing. And Chuck from Sentinel Mechanical was fantastic, just as Andy Lennox said he would be...he is like a super sleuth plumbing detective, exactly what we needed. In the meantime, we've had some good news and some bad news.
A few days ago the test sample of drywall they took out came back positive for asbestos. All work had to stop and we'll need a specialized asbestos mitigation crew to come in and do demolition on both bedrooms, the bathroom and the kids craft area. Unfortunately in my quest to move things along, I ripped out a wall in Macy's bedroom myself prior to the results coming back with no mask or even gloves (yeah, I know, stupid)...so I've potentially been exposed to asbestos inhalation. Considering I grew up in the '60s in an old battleship of an elementary school with asbestos everywhere...I am not too worried. The mold and e-choli tests are not back yet so we'll see what other dangers lurk. The flu bug that started with Liam and Quinn, hit Jen hard. Nonetheless she drove all the kids to Idaho Falls for Cole's hockey tournament on Friday. And Cole woke up Saturday puking...so Macy and myself are presumably next. I've been downing extra Vitamin C, and Kombucha with Chia seeds...anything I can think of to stave off the virus.
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| smelly water |
The good news is, if it is confirmed to be a break in a line and the water is backing up, the damage it caused will be covered by homeowners. In yet another odd twist of homeowners insurance jargon, the repair of the broken pipe will only be covered if the pipe is in the house, or under the concrete foundation of the house. If the pipe is exterior, insurance will not pay to repair the pipe and we'll have to pay to have that done before interior repairs can begin, And since we are in the midst of another sever winter storm warning, repairing a broken pipe somewhere in our front yard will not be an easy task. Hearing this news awakened memories of my childhood, when the flu bug was running through our house (just as it is now) and a water pipe broke during a major winter storm...the ground was so frozen the backhoe struggled to get through and a plume of water froze right in front of our house. It was pitiful, as neighbors trekked buckets of water over to our quarantined home so we could survive. It was pretty gross as I recall. Let's hope we don't have the same result here.
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