Last Sunday night, our house flooded. Our hot water heater, which is less than two years old, failed. The expansion tank, which sits on top of the hot water heater, broke and fell off. This allowed water to shoot from the hot water heater into our house from sometime around midnight (when we went to bed) to sometime around five in the morning (when I woke up).
The damage to the house is moderately substantial and relatively impressive. In roughly five hours the hot water heater was able to fill about half of our house with an inch of water. After getting the water line shut off we began cleaning things up. The carpet in our bedroom, closet, and my home office were soaked. There was standing water in the hallway, both hallway closets, the laundry room, two bathrooms, the kitchen, and the dining room. I set up some box fans and spent over an hour pushing water out of the house into the garage while my wife tried sucking water up out of the carpet using a wet-vac. We quickly realized we were going to need help.
Sunday afternoon a disaster clean-up company arrived. They removed all the baseboards (they’re MDF and already swelling). They pulled the carpet from the bedroom and our closet and half of the carpet from my office. They placed about 20 industrial fans throughout the house, set up dehumidifiers, and raised the temperature to about 90F. I wish I had an official sound meter. It sounds like a jet engine inside the house. The team returned on Monday and said our kitchen cabinets and island may be damaged, too. They drilled holes in the kickplates to let water escape from under them.
Both Sunday and Monday were long days. I spent several hours each evening emptying the shelves of my home office, moving the shelves to a different room, and putting everything from those shelves in boxes, storage tubs, and in many cases, back on the shelves. The fans and dehumidifiers had my room up to well over 100 degrees, making a dismal task even more miserable. What has to be done has to be done, you know?
It is currently Thursday morning. Since Sunday I’ve spent two nights at the hotel room with my wife and two nights in the van. The van has also become my mobile office, my quiet and cool space, and my napping nest. I’ve run an extension cord from my workshop out to the van so power isn’t an issue. I’m able to work from my laptop there in relative comfort. You’ve seen the van. I have a desk and a couch and a fan. It’s all good. We’re dealing with contractors nonstop and so both getting too far away from the house and staying in the house aren’t always possible, so the van is a nice, safe, comfortable place to retreat to. I have one of those free digital television antennas hooked up out there and while the channel selection isn’t wonderful from my driveway, I get both the Gameshow Network and the Court TV/Live PD channel, so between those two things I’ll be okay.
I am currently furloughed and was hoping to spend some time in the van this week… and while I am, this isn’t exactly what I had in mind!