The Anniversary Flood

What a way to celebrate an anniversary.

Picture this: You're at Home Depot, trying to remember the size of the air filters you need for your central air conditioning system. You call up your spouse on the phone. "Dear, can you run downstairs and check the size of the filter we need? I've forgotten." (Don't worry about the memory problem. It's all part of my Altzheimer's plan.)

Klunk-klunk-klunk-klunk as she goes down the stairs to the basement. The sound of metal scraping as she pulls the cover off, cardboard sliding as she pulls out the old filter. A pause. Then ...

"There's water on the floor."

Those are words I don't like to hear. At all. Not after spending so many hours putting down the subfloor. It was only a few weeks ago that the sump pump failed and we had water attempting to flood the basement. Luckily we caught it in time. But this time ... too late! There was already water all over the place!

This is the reason we put in the 'floating' subfloor. One-quarter inch of corrugated vinyl base with half an inch of particle board (or chip-board or whatever you call it) flooring on top, so the air can circulate beneath the floor and (hopefully) keep mildew from forming. 2' by 2' panels which snap together like so many Legos. So even if there is water underneath the floor, it won't destroy everything in its path.

It would've worked, too, if the depth of the water hadn't been such that it wicked up between some of the edges of the panels, causing the wood to swell up. I'll assume from this fact that the water was at least a quarter-inch deep, if not deeper in places.

At least it was easy to tell which panels were damaged. Had to rip 'em out, apply the Wet-Vac to the floor, suck up all the water I could find, then put the fans on and leave 'em on for a few days. They're still on, as a matter of fact.

What bothers me, almost as much as how they build houses around here which depend on electrical sump pumps to keep their basements from flooding, is that the central air unit wasn't put on a piece of sloping concrete so any leaks would roll on down to the sump instead of heading the other direction towards the office. Whassup with that? You figure there's this massive evaporator coil which drips water all summer long down this drain pipe, and if this drain pipe should happen to get blocked up, it's gonna back up to the spill point and then overrun down the side of the unit, and that will end up on the floor, right? So, just like people put their water heaters next to the sump, with a slight slope in that direction, why not do the same with the a/c?

Nope, guess that makes too much sense.

Took a couple days to get all the water pulled up, and, like I said, the fans are still on. I'm gonna hafta pull down some walls to remove some of the damaged panels, 'cause there are interior walls sitting on 'em. Looks like it's gonna be a fun weekend.

Oh, yeah, the anniversary.

Well, it wasn't one of the most romantic kind of anniversaries we've ever had, but we take these things in stride. Eighteen years of putting up with me, with four kids to show for it, you figure Cheryl's used to this kind of thing. I guess the first house, which was almost as old as me, was enough of an experience that she figured it out. I thank God every day for her understanding and patience.

After I get a few things back under control, I'm gonna take a day off and we're going to go someplace, just the two of us, and have a real celebration. With chocolate.