Last Wednesday we had some issues with the house. Turns out they were issues on the major side. I had intended to write about it last week when it happened but didn’t. So instead of the long, drawn out version I’m just going to post a few highlights of the disastrous days.
Our security alarm started squealing around 7:00pm. We ignored it and after a few minutes it stopped. Then it did it again. We ignored it, it stopped. At 8:30pm I took Ingrid upstairs for her bath. While I was bathing her I heard Derek vacuuming in the living room. The sound was music to my ears. After a few minutes of vacuuming, I noticed that Derek seemed to be rushing about a lot, and I started to think to myself, “wow, complaining about the mess of the house and hinting that Derek should help out more, really works”. I just assumed that Derek had gone into his hyper-cleaning mode and was tearing around the place, road runner style with duster and vacuum cleaner in hand. This pleased me to no end, until I started to think something else had gone on instead of cleaning.
The alarm had squealed once more while Ingrid was in the tub, after all. In the middle of vacuuming, Derek decided he’d had enough and was going to go disable it through the electrical panel in the basement. And, so began the frenetic running around. Upon opening the closet door in the basement, Derek was greeted by water gushing down over the fuse box and all over my shoes (mercifully stored in sealed, plastic shoe boxes). By this time the carpet had already started to get soaked.
Side note: We have about three feet of snow piled up outside. Wednesday was 8 degrees and rainy. After the day of mild temperature and rain that three feet of snow became about two feet. The ground is still frozen.
So where did the water go? Into our basement, electrical panel. Where was it coming from?
Enter seven strange men into my house. The first four were firemen, followed by two Ottawa Hydro workers, and then, in the pitch dark, one wee, little baby of an electrician. Sounds like it was a major emergency, doesn’t it? Not really but Derek didn’t know who to call. So he took out the phone book to call an electrician but with the water running in and his patience running thin he really didn’t have the time to read through the advertisements. So he called 411 and asked for a referral to an electrician in our area. The guy at the other end, understandably so, had no idea. He suggested we should call the fire department due to the potential for a major short/fire from the water mixing with the electricity.
Twenty minutes later a big fire truck arrives, light flashing.
Four men get out and come to the door. Remember, how rainy and melty it is out? You know what rainy and melty in February brings? Uh huh. That’s right. MUD. Remember how we have light coloured carpet in the basement? Uh huh. No longer light coloured. The fire men didn’t stop to wipe their feet, much less take off their boots. (Nor would I have expected them to given that our home was now their workplace and there was a potential fire/flood to deal with.) So needless to say after about a hundred and seven trips up and down the stairs the place was even more filthy. But they were very nice and seemed to know right away what the problem was. They pinpointed exactly where the water was coming from. We were thinking that there was a crack in the foundation. The firemen discovered, upon a review of the garage, that the water was leaking in from the place where the meter is connected to the house. Oh boy. At this point, a crack in the foundation didn’t sound quite as awful. I just couldn’t imagine how much trouble that would be or how much money it would cost to correct. Anyway, the firemen called Hydro for us, saying that it was likely their fault and not ours. At this point we didn’t have phone service anymore. Derek disconnected that early on because the digital box is located right next to the electrical panel and it, too, was getting soaked. They waited outside for Hydro to come but got called away for an actual fire. They promised they’d come back and wait until everything was settled for us. They were very, very nice.
The two hydro workers came in, went downstairs, looked at the panel a bit, and said that it was our problem since the pipe was broken between the meter and the house. Had it been broken from the meter to the transformer then it would have been their problem. Great. I was upstairs with Ingrid at this time but I was fully able to hear what was going on. I had to laugh when I heard Derek explaining what had happened and heard him saying something about “the water melting.”
Anyway, the only thing they could do was to turn off the power. Even greater. At least it wasn’t too cold out. Right before the power went out Derek had gotten in contact with both an electrician and our insurance company. Insurance said it wasn’t covered. Electrician was on his way. When he arrived and walked up to the dark house I couldn’t believe how clever he was to knock instead of ring the bell. I know it’s just common sense but it seemed clever to me at the time.
So he went about doing his electriciany thing. He said a lot of words that sounded downright awful to me. Words like, crack, conduit, dig, garage floor, $$$... Visions of my four extra months off with Ingrid were circling the drain. It sounded astronomically expensive. And according to his estimate, it was. At that point, in the dark, he could say for sure if they’d have to dig or not. He went out to his truck to call his boss and discuss electrician’s stuff. I wondered what was taking so long. Derek said, “you don’t want to know.” What would you think if someone said that to you? I automatically assumed something really bad, that he had given Derek some bad, expensive news and Derek didn’t want to tell me. So I asked him what he meant and he started to laugh. He said, he’s out in the truck on the phone with his boss’s wife. She’s taking relaying the message to her husband and taking notes to read back to our guy. Why? Because he had surgery the day before. Tracheotomy surgery. I know this is not funny and the guy should be commended (or maybe reprimanded) for working the very next day (and at 11:00 at night, mind you) but it just sounded so unbelievable to me. I turned to Derek and asked him “Are we even awake right now? Is it possible this is just a bad dream?”
But he suggested we wait until morning to start the work because it would be super expensive to have to bring in a crew at that hour (by this time it was after 11:00).
We finally got ready for bed. We kept Ingrid in our bed for the extra warmth and safety. No electricity = no heat and no monitor. She slept, well, like a baby. Derek and I, on the other hand did not. Derek couldn’t go to sleep and was talking a lot. He finally got up at 4:00 after fitful rest and went downstairs to check things out. By the time we went to bed it had stopped raining and the water had ceased flowing in. But during the four hours between when we went to bed and when Derek got up again, the water started flowing in again, fast and furiously. The bucket was overflowing. The carpet was S.O.A.K.E.D.
Bright and early at 7:30, the electricians arrived and I was surprised and relieved to see that there were only two of them and not a crew of twenty or more. Two more hydro workers came and one nearly electrocuted himself working on the transformer on our front lawn. I was standing in the upstairs window with Ingrid in my arms just looking out at all the excitement that was costing us an arm and a leg. Well, it wasn’t all that exciting so I turned to go and just as I did the room lit up really bright. My first thought was that the power came back on already. Then I realized that the electricians were still working so that couldn’t be true. Then I turned back to look out the window and there is smoke bundling out of the transformer and the hydro guy is now standing about six feet away from where he was when I last looked out, wiping something off his coat and rubbing his eyes.
Turns out his pliers hit one of the live wires and he fried the thing. The whole block lost power for a while as a result. Opps. Anyway, $3000 and five hours later, everything is all better. We’re still waiting to hear from the insurance adjuster. He was supposed to get back to us within a few days. It’s been over a week already. I’m really hoping that no news is good news.
Derek got to work pretty fast taking out the old, soggy underlay and had to replace some of the sub-flooring, too. Better safe than sorry. The last thing we want is to end up with mold.
Everything is pretty much back together now. Thanks Heavens! What a very long day.
