Wednesday, June 5, 2013

A Jack Hammer in my Living Room?!

They are jack-hammering a hole in my living room floor.
Really?!
Really?!

Is there ever an instance that the words jack hammer & living room 
should ever share the same sentence?!
I think not.

Here is a quick run down of last Thursday & Friday's events:

Gunnar, leaving for work at 5a on Thursday, comes to wake up his dad & me -- bearer of bad news.
"Dad, wake up ... there's water all in the garage floor."

Ugg.
What a wake-up call.
I got up with James & immediately told him of a weird occurrence around midnight 
right before I came to bed.
I had been sitting on the coach, up a bit too late, & in the quiet of my living room,
heard a pretty loud 'GURGLE' from behind me {front corner of our house}.
I explained to him that it sounded like one of those upside down water jugs that when you lift the lever
to get water, it gurgles as the water comes down.
It really startled me & I immediately jerked around to see what in the world was making that noise.
I got up ... looked out the window, figuring something outside had surely made the noise ...
only to find nothing.
Absolutely no explanation for the noise I know I heard!

We go into the garage to find water streaming down both exterior sides, but no immediate sign 
as to where it's coming from.
We came back into the house, walk over the whole lower level to see if there's anything wet inside...
and thankfully, nothing was ... so we thought.

Now, you have to know, if you don't already, that we've experienced a major water issue before. 
A few years ago, after being gone for 4 days to a conference, we came home to find our whole
lower level completely flooded with water.
Our water heater had gone bad.
It was a huge ordeal, but ended up being a blessing in the end.
We got all new flooring & trim, but had to deal with an unexpected upside down house for many weeks.

So ... clearly, we were concerned at the sight of water where it was not supposed to be.
Been there.  Done that.  Bought the T-shirt.

A few hours later, our friend, Jake the Plumber shows up to work his magic.
He initially thinks it's a leak NOT outside, no ... but right in the corner of my living room.


So, they begin preparing to fix the leak.
They posed for this 'promo' shot ;)
Jake, his son, & his apprentice ... super guys.
We could not have asked for a better crew.
{If you have plumbing needs, call Jake ... a very reputable christian man/company.}


Here is where the jack-hammer came into play.
Unfortunately, we are on a slab!  Boo!
Don't recommend it to anyone.
After making a little plastic room to contain all the dust, they started tearing up the concrete.
This is hole number #1  - a small exploratory hole to to begin trying to figure out the source of the leak.


It was filling up with water & sand as fast as he could empty it out.


Tray after tray of this water carried out of the house.



Unfortunately, that was not the source of the leak.
So, they moved on to the next area ... the front corner, exactly where I heard the gurgle sound!
{Jake said I undoubtedly heard the slab 'burping'}




After rolling back the carpet & building another little plastic room, they began searching here.
The leak was being quite difficult to locate under the concrete floor.






This resulted in hole #2
As you can see, it was quite larger than the first hole.


There was even some outside digging in attempt to locate the mysterious leak.




Unfortunately, no deal.
After working from 1p - 9p, they quit for the night, exhausted but vowing to conquer it the next morning.
So, we went to bed with a living room looking like this:




There were 2 things about this whole ordeal that struck me *funny*  ...
one was that just 2 weeks prior, I had my living room carpet professionally cleaned.
Seriously.
Here's a pic of the living room right after the carpets where shampooed.
Far cry from what would be taking place in this very room two weeks later =(


Looks so big & spacious without all the furniture.
Here it is with everything back in place.
I was so happy to have it all done ... so I thought.


And the other *funny* thing is that this happened on Thursday morning & on Friday, 
we were set to attend the IAHE Homeschool Convention for 2 full days of events.
Not the greatest timing, to say the least.
My mind was no where near it with all this havoc taking place in our home.
But, James insisted we go on to the convention & let Jake & his crew come work the next day,
doing what they do best.
We trusted them in our home & to complete the job.
And that's exactly what they did.
The illusive leak was located in the center of our living room floor!

Thankfully, they did not have to tunnel through the concrete all the way across the room.
They were able to run a flexi-pipe {please forgive me for lack of plumber-speak} & fix the leak.
They poured concrete to patch the holes & we were good as new.

Yes, this was a costly problem & it's never fun to cough up the insurance deductible,
we are glad the insurance covered it.

Yesterday, I had the carpet guys back out to re-clean the carpet & I think ... 
I think we are back to normal ... whatever normal is ;)



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Monday         Make It Yourself Monday        The Better Mom       C.R.A.F.T     Sunny Simply Life
Tuesday    Domestically Divine     A Bowl Full of Lemons    Titus Tuesday      A Stroll Through Life
Wednesday   Raising Homemakers        Savvy Southern Style         Adorned From Above
                   Women Living Well    Southern Lovely     The Thrifty Home
Friday    Happy-Go-Lucky     The Thrifty Groove      Farm Blog Hop
Sunday  Suburbsmama    Sew Many Ways

18 comments:

  1. Ugh...I am so, sooo sorry! We have a crawlspace, (thank the Lord,) but a year ago we had a mysterious leak and our water company insisted it was on our side, thus OUR responsibility. A new line was cheaper than a spot-fix, so we paid a lot of money and my front yard was destroyed, only to find out in the end that the leak was on the water company's side!! It took eight months of phone calls and providing documentation for them to finally admit their wrong and reimburse us. But we still only have grass in half our front yard! What a miserable headache!

    But at least all of that happened OUTSIDE my house! I can't imagine having it in the living room. Anyway, it's comforting to know we're not the only ones who have these delightful things come our way! Now I hope you can return to your "normal"!

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  2. Tanya, I think I remember hearing you mention on FB about your yard being dug up =( These woes of home-ownership can sure wear on one's patience, huh?! I am glad you were finally reimbursed. That was a headache in itself, I can imagine. As for returning to normal, I am quite excited about that! Thanks for stopping by!

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  3. Oh my word, I can so relate. We had a leak under our concrete slab in a previous home, and it is such a mess to find and fix. So glad you are getting back to normal. Hugs, Marty

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    1. So you know what I've been dealing with, huh?! I think concrete slabs are of the devil. Hopefully this is our first & last home with one.

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  4. I do not know how you coped with this, I think it would send me running to an island somewhere! Just so glad you got it fixed, and thankful for insurance!

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    1. It must've been a lot of praying ... to keep my sanity through the ordeal ;) As far as running to an island, I sure wish I'd have thought of that!! LOL ...think it's too late now?

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  5. Bless your heart for going through this! Happy it was fixed and thinking of you! Have a blessed weekend!

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    1. It was pretty awful. Thank you for your thoughts ... I sure appreciate it!

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  6. Yikes not fun at all. Thanks for joining TFF this week!

    Linda

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  7. That's just awful. I'm so glad they managed to find the source in the end otherwise you would have had to have a water feature as part of your room! What brilliant and patient workers they were. Hope all is well with the carpets etc. Take care. Chel x

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    1. ha ... that's quite an idea! Everything is dry, cleaned, & back in order. So glad!

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  8. Oh my! Not much fun, is it? We've had our water heater burst before and flood the basement.

    Another time we were painting our son's room and so put all the boxes in the family room. As we started moving things back my son said that the bottom of the boxes were wet. I was saying "That's impossible!" but sure enough there was a big wet patch.

    We moved the couch and underneath it was a huge wet spot. A pipe had burst. So out came the jack hammer and the handy-dandy repair guys, lol! The thing that shocked me was how badly it smelled when they dug it all up.

    The guy said that the sugars and all the stuff that come down the kitchen pipe was what was making the smell. It literally smelled like an outhouse. It was THAT bad!

    We left the basement windows open (it was summer) and figured if a burglar was going to brave that smell to steal from us he deserved whatever he could take, haha!

    The insurance ded. IS a pain though, you're right! ;) However, the Lord worked everything out really well. We found someone who gave us a good deal on carpet and floor vinyl he wanted to get rid of and he gave us a good deal.

    So with the insurance money we were able to recarpet the downstairs, AND the stairs, and we also got new vinyl flooring for the downstairs kitchen, the upstairs kitchen and the entry hall! So it was actually a blessing in disguise!

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    1. omgoodness -- you had quite an ordeal yourself!! Yikes. There was no smell with ours, thank God! I tell ya, home ownership can be quite an adventure! I'm glad your turned out well in the end. Thank you for sharing your comment!

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  9. I feel for you! Repairs are never fun. As you say - been there , done that, bought the t-shirt too! We had just finished carpeting our basement then the a pipe bursts (long story) everything was under several inches of water - ruined the padding - they saved the carpet. Due to kids in college we never got the carpet fully restored to what it had been, some day we will fix it. Glad you got the whole in the middle of your living room fixed. If it is any consolation - i found your post entertaining!!

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    1. Oh my ... just after you had carpeted?! The timing on things like that are just plain puzzling. Thank you for stopping by ... & yes, I'm happy you got a giggle ;)

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  10. What a blessing that it was under carpet and not under a tiled floor. We had one once. I had a giant hole in my kitchen floor. So happy that things are back to normal. Just found you blog through Marty. I'm a new follower.

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    1. Oh no ... that would have indeed been worse =( Thank you for following! I'm sure glad to have ya.

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