Our first wet basement

After spending Thanksgiving weekend with my in laws, we returned home Monday ready to tackle the week. While I stocked our fridge with leftovers, Mr. Speedy ran down to the basement to feed Allistair, our bunny, who had been home alone all weekend. All seemed well.

Then Mr. Speedy yelled "We have a problem" followed by silence. I shouted "What?" while wondering whether we'd been robbed or if the bunny had not fared so well flying solo for the weekend. When I still didn't get a response, I dashed downstairs to try to quell my wild imagination.

That's when I saw Mr. Speedy standing in water up over his ankles in the unfinished portion of our basement. What used to be our laundry and storage area had turned into a wading pool.

So, I grabbed some flip flops and started rescuing boxes while we tried to figure out where the water was coming from. A quick investigation showed some telltale bubbling from the water heater, so we quickly phoned the rental company and turned the handle to stop the flow of water from the cold water pipe to the heater.

Repairmen, and a new hot water heater, were on their way (and arrived within hours, thankfully) but, it was a holiday and we still had several inches of water in our basement. And, we had neither a car nor a wet vac.

We called in a favour from a friend with a car, who then did the tour of closed-for-the-holiday hardware stores with Mr. Speedy while I waited for the repairmen. We figured we were out of luck, but thankfully, our friend remembered that his church had a wet vac, and was able to borrow it for us.

The wet vac, along with uncovering a floor drain that had been closed off by a previous owner, helped take our basement from a pool to a puddle.

So, things are looking up. Our shiny new water heater has been installed. The carpet and underpadding that had been down there (which, honestly, we hadn't liked much anyway) has been trucked out to the garage awaiting disposal, the dehumidifier and fans have been working overtime, and the space has had a thorough scrub.

But, sadly, the story isn't over. Last night, while debating whether it was finally dry enough to return all the storage items, which have been cluttering up the finished portion of the basement, Mr. Speedy noticed a small but steady trickle of water streaming down the side of our shiny new tank. Turns out the soldered new connection isn't quite sealed. Argh.

So, they're coming tomorrow to finish patching it up. All in all, we were pretty lucky. No real damage was done to our home, and nothing important got waterlogged. But, it was definitely stressful and perhaps the least fun we've had since moving in. I'm hoping that after tomorrow, and another scrub, my basement will return to its former glory of storage area and laundry room, albeit sans carpeting.