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January 21, 2006
In-house pond
*sigh* It's not every day that you walk down the basement stairs, look into the old cold room, and find your very own in-house pond, especially when the high for the day is a balmy -22C. We currently have a 1-1/2" to 2" deep pond, about 12 feet long and 5 feet wide, in the middle of the cold room . . . underneath the main floor bathroom.
This leaves little doubt that the main water shut-off for the house is faulty. In the 30 minutes or so between the time Dana cut the cold water pipe in the bathroom and our discovery that it was leaking significantly, we managed to end up with all of this water in the basement. As we only saw the water on the bathroom floor, we assumed* (incorrectly) that the shut off valve was at least partially functioning. Thankfully, the in-line shut off that Dana & I installed, after discovering the problem, appears to have worked, so the only water that's in the basement is what ended up there yesterday afternoon. It's a good thing that we stuck around to clean up, as I hate to think of the amount of water we'd have had down there if we'd left for the night. No pictures, though, as I left the digital camera sitting on my desk in Saskatoon :-( Although I'm sure that the water won't have magically evaporated by tomorrow morning.
On the plus side, the area of the basement that's flooded is almost entirely separated from the rest of the basement by 6" thick concrete walls. And, because we're finished, for the time being, with the laundry room, there's nothing in there but a pile of old bricks left by the previous owner. So, the water won't hurt anything, but I'll likely mop up tomorrow any that's still there, just because the idea of having our own personal interior pond is a bit creepy.
No sign today of the town foreman, so I guess I'm going to have to call the town office on Monday to make sure that this gets dealt with. Tomorrow's plumbing involves stuff that we've already put in-line shut offs on, so we should be able to get the basement bathroom's toilet and sink installed without issues.
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* As Dad has always said, to assume anything makes an "ass" of "u" and "me". I should know better by now, especially when dealing with plumbing, to triple check everything.
Posted by plainstext at January 21, 2006 08:34 PM
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Comments
Ugh...what a pain:( I'm glad, though, that the water is relatively contained and didn't ruin anything.
We don't have a basement, but if we did, I'm sure something like this would happen to us eventually, lol. Oh the joys of homeownership!
Posted by: Twilightmama at January 22, 2006 09:06 AM