I thought I would share this adventure that H and I had in the new house last night.
So, we got 6 inches of rain starting yesterday afternoon through overnight. It was raining buckets for hours. The last time we got this much rain we woke up to some water and mud in the basement. Not a ton, but enough to be concerning. We weren't able to locate the source because our crawl space is actually in the middle of our house (due to expansions), and it seemed to have just appeared from the floor somewhere.
So last night when the rain started we went downstairs to watch it. We found the source of the water in the basement... and sure enough we had a small river starting to form. Most of it went to the sump pump, but some water was seeping through the wall of the crawlspace into the finished part of the basement on the other side of the wall.
So H walks the perimeter of the house and we discover a storm drain that's been covered by leaves. He uncovers it, and sure enough, the water stops. Success!
Unfortunately, we had just replaced our mattress and put the old one in the basement for overflow guests during the holidays. So when the water started to seep into the finished space, we kind of panicked and moved the mattress and box spring to a place that wasn't getting water. We turned the mattress on its side to keep the floor clear. Well our basement has low ceilings, and when the mattress is turned on its side it brushes the top of the ceiling. In our rush to rescue the mattress from the water, we accidentally placed it against a lightbulb in the ceiling.
After H manages to stop the water from coming in, we start to smell something funky. We have a gas line in the basement, and I'm starting to think we have a gas leak too. Right as I'm about to call the gas company, H notices that there is smoke coming from the ceiling near the mattress. Sure enough, the mattress is on fire...
Luckily, we caught it before it got bad. H got to use the fire extinguisher, which he thought was very exciting, and then we spent the next hour mopping up the floor, vacuuming up the fire extinguisher stuff, and trying to get the smell of smoke out of the basement.
This morning, our basement was dry and the smoke smell was gone. It all turned out just fine, but we sure did learn some important lessons! Lesson 1: check the house drainage carefully and make sure to continuously remove debris. Lesson 2: don't panic when water starts to come in. It can make a bad problem worse. Lesson 3: fire extinguishers are important! There should be one on every level of a house, plus the garage. We had to run upstairs to get ours from the kitchen, and if the fire had been bad or was spreading quickly, we would have wasted precious time. Needless to say, we will be keeping one in the basement from now on.
Re: The joys of home ownership