Sew & Sew Flooded (Monsoon Season)

[Virgs Sew n Sew]

Yes, I live in Nebraska.  However, we've had rain off and on since Thursday, each storm has had periods of heavy rain.  Not great because it had been very dry so most of the farm lands were having run off probably losing seeds that have been planted.

We've taken great pains with my Sew & Sew area since I'm in a basement and flooding can be a problem with basements.  We make sure that the gutters are kept free of debris and we bought the plastic extenders that attach to the downspout to take the rain water away from the foundation.

We haven't had any real issues since we did that.  A little bit of leakage after one particularly heavy torrential downpour that lasted 6+ hours.  We have industrial carpet without a pad underneath so I just took a handful of dirty towels and absorbed as much of the water as I could and then positioned 2 oscillating fans on the wet area for a day or two until I was sure the carpet was good and dry.  No problem. 

I had been up and downstairs 3 or 4 times this morning.  Stretching vinyl and I generally use the dining room table.  It's pub height and works well so that I'm not bending at that funny angle that gives me and my fused back a great deal of pain.  My last trip down here I was cursing myself for not being able to remember everything I need the first time ; ) and I walked over a section of carpet that I had walked over each trip before.  This time I squished.  I looked down and saw the center section of the floor only was wet.  No ponding at least but I used every dirty towel I had in the laundry to get up as much of the moisture as I could before starting fans.  It took me a little bit to figure out how the water came in but I finally did.  One more thing on the things that get fixed this year list.

We have a corn burning stove down stairs.  I never used it for obvious reasons (fabric, smoke, sparks, etc).   Probably 4 years ago (I think it was the first summer after my FIL passed), MIL and SIL were over here because we have a basement and we were under a tornado watch.  We didn't have a tornado but we did have some heavy duty straight line winds.  The wind sheared off the top of our chimney pipe for the stove.  We had it capped but evidently something has happened to the cap as the water comes directly under the section of pipe that connects to the back of the foundation.  Rain seems to have stopped and I think it is going to be dry for a while so knock on wood it won't rain until we can get this fixed properly.

Just like Roseanna Danna's (SP?) father always said: "If it's not one thing, it's another".

Could have been much much worse!

Virginia

[SteveA]

Glad it wasn't worse -  do you have a submersible pump just in case ?  although sometimes in storms the power goes out -  keeping the gutters healthy is a real plus  - 

SA

[Mojo]

I have had two floods in the shop. One was real bad after tropical storm Debbie. I thought I found the problem and fixed it. Nope. So I had gutters installed with downspout extensions which fixed the problem.

A month ago we had a bad storm and I walked into the shop to find it flooded again but not nearly as bad as before. Turns out one of the dogs knocked an extension off the downspout which was right near a door way. Fixed that and have had no problems since.

The flood after Debbie was horrible. Shut me down for two days and I had to extract a whole lot of water using a big shop vac. Hopefully you will have your problem fixed. Floods are not fun.

Chris

[Virgs Sew n Sew]

I must have done a great job sopping up water with the towels.  Came down this morning to check the floor and it is damp in one corner where the fans couldn't get to adequately.  Rest of the floor is dry to the touch.  I repositioned one fan to get the damp section and will leave the other running today in a better safe than sorry mode.  Just want to be sure that the underside of the carpet is dry.

Not too bad of a loss as far as time goes.  I was really getting burnt out as I've been burning the candle at both ends trying to get caught up from down time due to MIL's passing and all the related issues that come with it afterwards.  Plus Joe, much as I love him, does eat up some time.  He's very loving and also very energetic and doesn't seem to want to listen to me very well which I don't understand as he was basically housebroken in 9 or 10 days.  I scratch my head over this a lot!  He and I are enrolled in obedience training classes starting May 12th.  I'm also starting to do tear out on the patio table in the back yard just to get him out in the fresh air a bit more.  Hopefully that will get some of his excess energy channeled outside of the house.  He is a big boy.  Almost 40 pounds last vet weigh in.  I'm sure he weighs a bit more by now.

Virginia

[Darren Henry]

Sorry to hear about the flood---at least it was relatively minor. Bet you're glad now that everything is up above the puppy line LOL.

My apartment flooded last spring and I bought a dehumidifier to speed up the drying. [underlay and jute backed carpet on concrete]. What a huge difference! I hadn't really thought about how humid it was in here until i got it down to around 40%. Way more comfortable--- I ran that sucker right up until the baseboard heaters came on in the fall  and will be plugging it back in shortly.

[Virgs Sew n Sew]

LOL, I thought of that.  Some of the vinyl would have been in the flooded area but because Joe thinks it's "cool" to nibble on it and I don't, I've been keeping it in what was the bedroom closet before we tore out the bedroom.  That closet has been a lifesaver for me!

Nice to be back down here today without all of the fans running.

Virginia

[CW]

True, if it isn't one thing, it's another. Sorry you had to do that. One year our water heater busted and spilled water everywhere. Thank goodness for the shop vac which picked up most of it. It was a nightmare. Hope that will be the last of that for you.

[gene]

Roseanna Danna

Wow, I haven't thought of Gilda Radner in a long time. I saw a picture of Gene Wilder a few days ago and didn't even think of Gilda. She was one of my favorites on SNL.

I watched an interview with her once and she was asked when did she know that she was a star. She said she was being driven to work (Saturday Night Live) one day by her chauffeur and she saw all the other cast members walking down the sidewalk to work. That's when it hit her.

Just some off topic to take your mind off the water issues.

gene

[Virgs Sew n Sew]

Loved Gilda Radner.  She was definitely my favorite of the original cast.  Though all of them had me rolling on the floor when they did their skits.  Too funny.

Went out yesterday to talk the extenders off the drain pipes as we get mowed on Tuesday.   The middle pipe which is directly behind the stove had a bunch of leaves stuck in it (was NOT this way last Tuesday).  I got a long stick and started pulling the gunk out.  Once I got everything out and started picking the debris up, I found a dead bird in the pile.  So that explains why the water started backing up.  The poor bird got caught in the pipe and drowned.  Water couldn't push through adequately around the body and had to go somewhere.  No way to prevent this from happening again -- falls under the heading of "Doo doo occurs"

Do want to have a different cover for the remaining stove pipe put on just to keep all of our bases covered.

Virginia

[kodydog]

The flood after Debbie was horrible.

Chris

Tropical storm Debbie came up the coast and cut across Florida making a beeline for Live Oak. It stalled here for about a full day. Our house and shop are high and dry but the dirt roads were impassable for 2 weeks. Many of my neighbors didn't fair so well. A friend of ours had 2' of water inside their house. US 129 one of the main roads through Suwannee county was flooded for many weeks. Many cars were stuck and abandoned. Drivers looking for a route south would cut through our neighborhood only to find water 8' deep in places and making the roads even worse. That storm did more damage than most hurricanes.

[Darren Henry]

One year our water heater busted and spilled water everywhere. Thank goodness for the shop vac

I had a washing machine hose blow while the house was empty. Friends of mine called to let me know there was a large skating rink in our back lane and it was coming from the corner of my house where the kitchen is.

Then my currant tenant let the water lines freeze and burst. He said the water was ankle deep in the kitchen when he got home from work. My next house is going to have a swimming pool under the garage and living quarters up stairs LOL.

[Mike]

I had a shop an older building that was in beteen a fork in 2 roads as with code as the roads rose made the building in a valley and when it poured the place would flood.   my new shop has no chance of flooring with 4 steps up