Water

I live in a place where it sometimes rains for days uninterrupted and during times like these everyone has the same thought so it doesn’t need to be said. “Flood conditions,” said the one guy. Oh, that was me. 2008 brought our little town a devastating flood that left an indelible mark on our city’s history and those weeks where it rains unabated give us all that niggling worry about the next time. The house I currently call home and sit in at this time was among the hundreds flooded. I’d not be honest if I didn’t think about it almost daily, even if just for a moment. Though I’ve not lived through a major flood cleanup personally as we didn’t own this home during ‘08, I’ve lived through a minor one and that’s enough motivation to worry excessively about the next one.

Our first flip started with a pretty big basement clean out and rehabilitation. It was dank and musty and had the telltale signs of a basement that hadn’t been anything other than an afterthought for a long time. But we got it emptied out and it started feeling a lot more habitable, and with a dehumidifier, a lot dryer. It was a pretty serious improvement just to get it not seeming like a dungeon. 

I’ve always had a penchant for reducing clutter and this includes extraneous scrap old wire no longer in service or staples or scrap wood shoved into joist spaces. I like removing this brand of clutter. Naturally, some of that’s not clutter. Take, for instance, the washing machine drain tube. It must have gotten knocked loose in the activity of reclaiming the basement, and sat harmlessly on the floor.  I saw this, andmade a mental note. What I should have done was secure the hose, but instead, I made a mental note. A mental. Note.

One week it had been raining for days on end and while sitting in school one of those afternoons, it occurred to me that I ought to check the basement. It’s almost never a good sign when you hear running water upon entering a house and I sensed a calamity right away. When I flipped on the light and peered down the stairs to the basement, I saw a glint of light catch on water. A fair lot of water.

I rushed down the steps and stepped into about six inches of water. The back of the room revealed the source: water was gushing from the washer drain pipe; that would be the tube that had been knocked loose weeks ago. The one that I made a mental note to put back on. See, those drain tubes have a back flow valve that prevents water from flowing back into the washer. That thing almost always works, though you may have had yours fail before and ended up with some smelly water puddling in the washer. But I can tell you with unfettered certainty that the valve on the tube only works if the tube is stuck into the pipe. Yeah, that’s how that works.

All the while, the dehumidifier is waging a futile war in the middle of the room while it sits in 6 inches of water and tries to rid the world of moist air. I took a deep breath (not that that would help any) and tiptoed (again, pointless) over to the outlet and unplugged it before it sent electricity across the surface of this new body of water. Meanwhile, the brand new furnace, installed a month ago, is also sitting in water. $6000 in electronics and metal. 

It had been raining torrentially for a few days and the storm drains were at capacity. In and of itself that wouldn’t be an issue; the issue was that the back flow valve that should have been keeping water from rolling downhill into the basement was sitting on the floor because a week earlier when I saw it laying on the floor, I left it there, on the floor, and not stuck into the pipe where it belonged. The instant I stuck it back in, it was as if the faucet had been turned off. It was over. But for the six inches of water left in the basement. At this point I frantically started calling people. I had no experience dealing with this level of mess. My friend and renovation mentor, Phil, thought I might need one of those disaster cleanup companies, who I spoke to and was told that I’d be in the hole for $1500 or so, depending. I scheduled them for the next day.

Then, something amazing happened. There was nothing for me to do but wait, so I went home to fix a stiff drink and worry. While I was doing that, the water started doing what it does: go down. The basement has a floor drain. 

Floor drains were given to us by God as a gesture of grace in the face of stupidity. The next morning, the water was gone. Well, basically gone. There was a quarter inch or so of mud left behind, a reminder from God that yes, I dodged a bullet but I was going to have to pay a little penance to ensure that I never repeated this rookie oversight ever again. So Megan and I scraped and squeegeed the mud in what was several passes across the basement floor. Each time, it would seem like you’d gotten it all, but when it dried, there would be more grime evidently present. 

I’ve never experienced a serious flood, though the house we live in has. Our basement, along with every other house in our neighborhood, filled to the joists with water in the flood of 2008. There’s not a day that passes that I don’t think, at least once, about the possibility of that 500-year flood returning 485 years or so too soon. I wouldn’t be honest if I said otherwise, even though our neighborhood has taken clear steps to prevent a repeat catastrophe. 

Relentless, water is. It’s like the Ringwraiths in Lord of The Rings; “They will never stop hunting you,” says Aragorn to Frodo. Water is like that. Always rolling downhill, always finding a way in. Never satisfied to leave our homes in peace. Our home on The Lagoons is tormented by water as well. The junction between the house and garage will occasionally resemble one of those cool water curtains you can step through. I’m exaggerating of course, but the roof over the garage is perfectly flat. Or it was. Now it’s like a fun house floor, rising and falling from decades of sun, water, and rot. So the junction leaks. I will say it used to leak much worse and I’m a little proud of the fact that I was able to, a couple years ago, do a halfassed repair that actually worked, at less on the sense that the drips moved away from the door and the house and simply further into the garage. Fine with me. Dale told me how to attack it; there’s a low area at the junction of the roofs which I filled in with spray foam. After that, I covered it with a roll of $60 tape for roofs and smeared a couple gallons of the stickiest substance man ever created. For two years, the drips have abated, but water always finds a way and this year, that garage is going to have to come down.

Then there’s the elephant in the room, that being the flood of 2008. Our entire basement flooded, along with almost every other house on The Lagoons. I try not to dwell on this fact every day if I can help it. The basement now looks great, having been fully remodeled by the previous owners. But we will probably never put too much money into the downstairs for this reason. Water finds a way. 

There are only three solutions to the pervasive anxiety about flooding. First, don’t live in a flood plain. Be aware the flood maps change with development and the changing geography of the land. Just because a house doesn’t sit in a floodplain now doesn’t mean it won’t ever. Second, flood insurance. In flood plains, it’s not even optional here if you have a mortgage. Honestly? It’s not as bad as it sounds or as you might think. 

Third, and most importantly, avoid the avoidable, like my boneheaded oblivion in the basement of our flip. If your basement is prone to water, make sure you either have a floor drain or a working sump pump. Know the age of your water heater; they all go eventually, so prepare by replacing that 15- year old water heater. And even if your basement doesn’t flood but is damp and dank, get a dehumidifier. 

Remember, water is the enemy of houses. Keep it at bay wherever it rears its head. If you find yourself in need of water mitigation of any kind, reach out. No, I won’t come over with a squeegee, but I will recommend whoever you need: contractor, insurance agent, or cleanup crew. Stay dry out there, homeowners.