The big water leak of 2007!

(pictures are of the corner where it all began, the board that was pulled away, the room where it all took place, the big crack in the wall, the second spot with only the hole visible here,big plastic boards we used to try and shield the rain, foam cushions to mop up the water that was pooling infront of the house, tarps that were put up to deflect the rain outwards, I missed photos of me scooping up the water into buckets and dumping it further away from the house (the neighbours had fun watching me though), rugs cut up in bags, and that sums it up)

























































In my earlier post I talk about my lovely birthday. Well there were other things going on that week as well so here is the saga of it all...Well it all started on January 1st (New Years Day)...after watching all my organizational shows and talking with our neighbour who was cleaning our her things (okay her house is so beautiful, she is a talented lady who does all kinds of amazing thing with furniture and paint, her style is modern country) I decided to purge some of my things that I'd be hanging onto for far too long. So I go downstairs and my sister and I are cleaning our junk and my mom is on the elliptical machine. We are so into cleaning stuff out and my sister has her tea cup nearby with hot tea. All of the suddent she notices a circle of wetness below her and mom and I assume she dropped her tea. She says no her tea has not spilled and I just tell her to forget about it and move on. She bends down and feels it is wet and then takes an exacto knife and cuts into the rug (okay we panicked and the carpet is one we don't like that much and was here when we bought the house). Well folks there is water underneath and as she tears away more and more of the rug it is wet all over.

We call our neighbour Mike over to help us out and he isolates the leak to a corner that is near the outside wall and pulls back the wall (it's panelling so easy to pull away) and then there is a part where the pink insulation stops and you see just the cement of the outside wall. Lo and behold there is big crack that goes down to the ground. Meanwhile my sister is moving stuff out of the room at the speed of sound and I can hardly keep up and we don't want the leak to get to anything. So like half the room is cleared out and overflowing all over the place and it's all my stuff.

Last week-end (well January 4,5,6th to be exact) was harrowing with rain coming in buckets. Friday night we were up until 10p.m. mopping constantly. It rained all afternoon really heavy and we had to keep mopping constantly. You cannot let up or it will start to flood the room. The rain was supposed to go until midnight which we were ready for. Caron and mom put up tarps but they did nothing. Think I told you I had to keep bailing buckets of water trying to delay it coming into the basement. We had some repsite Saturday during the day I think (it is all a blur) and then the news said it would rain again but no time. We all pulled an all nighter and it started at midnight and went straight until 8a.m (it was very heavy from 2-8) and we had to mop constantly to keep the water at bay. It seeps in through the crack and then we found another crack next to it and that was leaking only slightly. My sister had to keep going outside as the rain was about 2 inches high and she kept sweeping it with a broom away from the house to avoid me mopping so much inside. It did help somewhat but I had to keep an eye on it. She made a shield out of plastic to brush a lot of water away. Friday night and Saturday night I was very frightened that the whole downstairs would flood and so tired. I've never prayed so much in my life. Our neighbours did check on us the ones that found our leak.

The neighbours to the left of us 2 doors down had it really bad. Their whole basement flooded with water and our neighbours went over with shop vacs to pick it all up. They are a couple that are 85. We were stunned to see their lights out Saturday night when we pulled the all nighter and found out they went to sleep. Well you can't sleep when you have a leak of any sort. The problem is their drains don't work so it pours in the back. They should have stayed up to contain the water. Everyone thinks we are fine but that is only because 3 of us are at it constantly mopping or brushing it away from the house. Finally at 8am Sunday morning it died down. Normal rain we can handle but not went it comes down in sheets that's when the problem starts. Caron and I took a nap early Sunday morning while my mom stayed up. I've never felt so helpless before and worried. It was supposed to be constant rain from Saturday straight until Tuesday and I didn't know how we would all stay up that long. We had planned to do shifts for sleep. It is these times I wish we had a man in the house. Thankfully it did not rain Sunday night so we could all sleep but I can hear it if it gets bad as I sleep right by the window where it pours in sheets. My sister is away from the room where it gets loud if it pours. It is supposed to rain January 7th and 8th but didn't.

This past Wednesday the waterproof guy came to check it out. He was referred by a friend of ours who owns a few places in Victoria and is from our old church. He was also on the news last night. He will come and use a jack hammer to go beneath the payment infront of our house and will waterproof it so we never need to worry. Wednesday morning we had someone come clean our drains. Thank the Lord we called last week as they are so booked up and we got a cancelation. They are supposed to be done every 5 years and we didn't know so they haven't been done in the 11 years we have been here. No one on this street has gotten it done so we didn't know. We think the problem is our eaves troughs are broken, the weeping tiles aren't holding, the drain is possibly clogged, and we have two foundational cracks in our foundation (yep we found another one when we were mopping our heads off last Saturday night).

The neighbour two to the right of us also had flooding bad and they had their drains snaked on Friday night and thought they were fine. They went to sleep Saturday night and got up to a flood (we were the only smart ones to stay awake) so our neighbours have been helping them rip up carpets. We saw our neighbours with buckets bailing the people two to the left of us. The street opposite us all seem to be fine. Our neighbour to our left said it happened to him 10 years ago and he got it repaired. The ones to the left of us with the flood brought us Chinese food which was so nice. My mom went over to hug the woman (Verna, they are the ones in their 80's) and said we were all there for her. The neighbours have been so wonderful. We knew where our leak was so were able to control it. Last Sunday morning we all woke up drained (since we pulled the all nighter the night before). So many people have been over to check out the leak and also we had friends drop by yesterday and we were so tired.

Last Saturday night my sister kept checking the back drain and didn't tell us at the time but it was up to the top and she was worried. I would have been if I had known. My sister went to work this past Monday and heard horror stories about people all over. Downtown got hit bad and everyone is traumatized. It is exhausting experience. I just kept thinking of Katrina and what they must have gone through with losing their homes.

So the latest news is we had 5 drains and all were clogged but now 3 are clear. The drain cleaners will come back in a month of so and clean the other two which involves more digging I think. The waterproof guy comes Monday to seal the inside and then comes in a couple months to do the outside since it involves digging as well. After the inside wall gets fixed Monday we are thinking we will paint the concrete in our rec room (that makes it warmer our friend told us) and then we may do linoleum or just leave it painted with a middle area rug as we have gym equipment in there. It's been fun times for the last few weeks (okay sarcasm there) but it could of been worse and nothing got damaged except the old rug in that room. When the drain people came to clean the drains they said we had an inch and a half clearance in the back drain and then it would have flooded the downstairs completely. God is good and our praying definitely worked. That freaked me out when I heard that.

S. is finally out :)