Just as I think I'm getting used to this Yankee life up here, something happens to smack me back to reality.
This morning we got up as usual, and as I was in the kitchen about to make Jim's lunch I hear a sound from the basement sounding an awful lot like pouring water. Upon investigation, YES - not pouring but spewing water, with water all over the basement floor. We had lots of rain last night which apparently our sump pump did not like. I don't know if there is a clog in the french drain that caused this, but a point where two pipes are clamped together has sprung a leak, so every 15 min or so when the pump kicks on water starts spraying out from this connection.
I've got most of the water sopped up with mutiple uses of just about every towel in the house (saturate towel, spin cycle in washer, hot setting in dryer, repeat - I'm rotating about three batches of towels). Looks like we only lost one framed picture, a sisal rug (that I didn't like anyway) and a box of videotapes - most everything else that got wet can dry out and survive, and the really good stuff is on a shelf up high or in plastic bins. I'm patiently waiting the arrival of the plumber, going down and changing towels out that are trying to catch the occasional spray from the pipe.
Before moving up here I don't think I'd ever been in a basement in a house or seen a sump pump. I'm still a bit mystified by the pump - this big strange hole in the bottom of my house that water drains into. At least this is still covered by the home warranty, so hopefully I'm only going to be out $95 to get it fixed.
2 comments:
Yuck! Did you get it fixed? I would be major freaking out.
Of course it was a very easy fix. The metal clamp that held the two pipes together hadn't been screwed shut all the way - something Jim could have done had he not had to leave by 7am to get to work (and of course had we tried to fix it ourselves it would have ended up being something much worse). It did force me to finally organize the storage room down there - unpack the final boxes and buy shelving so now I can actually find stuff down there.
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