First, the good news: I figured out what was causing the old vinyl floors in our kitchen to buckle.
The bad news: it was caused by our refrigerator, which had a small leak that was seeping into the seam between the wall and the flooring.
Also bad news: I finally diagnosed the problem because the leak had gotten worse, and a small puddle appeared in front of the refrigerator last night, and again this morning. I had thought it was from a melted ice cube. I was wrong.
And, more bad news: the trap door access to the basement where the water supply shut-off to the refrigerator is located was waterlogged and could not be opened with the handle in the usual way. The handle started separating from the hatch, like a peel-off sticker from a waxy sheet of paper. Not good.
Then, some good news! My son climbed under the house from an exterior access point, crawling in the mounds of dirt and debris that had been left behind during a remodel by the previous owner, and was able to turn off the water supply and pushed open the hatch door from below, literally pushing the door up with his back in a super-push-up burst of herculean teen-age strength. (It is moments like these when my husband is especially happy we have a strong, healthy and helpful son.)
But the elation is short-lived. My son reports what he sees in the basement. "There's about an inch of water down here, and the furnace is kind of submerged at the bottom." And then, a glimmer of good: "The water heater is on a stand, though, so it looks okay."
Apparently, the small leak had been seeping into and through the floor boards, raining down onto the concrete pad below, where the water heater and furnace are located.
Surprise good news: my husband reports that there is a sump pump down there!
But, you guessed it, bad news: it wasn't working.
I put on my Japanese gardening boots that my dad gave me and head down to start bailing, and decide to check out the sump pump while I am down there. I hit the reset button on the electrical outlet, and nothing happens. I pull the pump out of the waterlogged hole and try to manually trip the buoyed switch, and nothing happens. I continue with the bowl and bucket, then, I notice an extension cord. And ... good news!!! I plug in the sump pump plug into the extension cord, and it immediately starts siphoning water out and into the long snaking hose that appears to lead out of the basement crawlspace.
Wait. I say "appears to" because I don't actually know where it leads. I've never seen a sump pump hose outside of our house, which is partly why I was convinced we didn't have one. Surely, the water must be going out and away from the house, right? I strain to see where the hose is leading, but can't see much with all the dirt. I unplug the sump pump, and decide it's my turn to get dirty. My husband gets me a step stool so I can climb out of the concrete utility pit and onto the dirt, following the hose until I find the end, which didn't take long because it was inside the basement, emptying the water directly against the interior of the foundation. Bad, bad, bad news. It looks like somebody had done some shearwalling within the crawlspace -- good news -- and closed up the exit point for the hose, and decided to just leave it dumping water along the foundation -- very bad.
We decide to re-route the hose up the stairs, through the laundry area and out the door. Good plan. Unfortunately, the hose has many holes in it, and in my effort to make sure the hole-riddened section stayed in the basement squirting into the concrete pit and not inside the house, I didn't give enough hose to make it completely out of the doorway and, once the pumping started, the hose moved around like a serpent and belched out its watery innards inside the house. Bad.
Undeterred, we try again. With a little bit of duct tape and tweaking, we finally get it working so the water goes out of the house, trailing away from the house and its foundation with no further serpentine belching in the house. Good, good, good.
The concrete pit is now empty enough that I am no longer sloshing around in my boots. There is still enough water to make puddles on the concrete -- which does not seem to be draining towards the sump pump hole (bad!!!) -- but I am not going to lose sleep over this. My husband has been busy drying out the laundry area, which is extra important since this doorway, unfortunately, is our main entrance in and out of the house right now. The handset on our front door was broken, and since our contractor was not able to finish the job before the weekend, the front door is literally screwed shut until he comes back. Sigh. Bad, but not too bad.
It feels like Murphy's Law has been in full effect today, but I am still feeling pretty good that things are better than they were when the day began. As I take off my boots, I say a little "Thanks, Dad" -- grateful that I got to be the "boy" of the family, watching him fix things while playing the part of daddy's little helper, internalizing the curiosity and persistence it takes to trial-and-error things in hopes of some sort of resolution.
Now, it's time to get some dinner and a bake a birthday cake. Today, my daughter's birthday, was almost completely consumed by our little home project. Almost. There's still time to celebrate. And that is definitely good news.
