Three inches of rain in about an hour yesterday afternoon!
We were away at the time, but on my return home I noticed a lot of things had moved - rather floated - to new locations! Paint cans, the humidifier, my boots, etc., etc., had moved! (Note to self and others - plastic bins keep out the water, but they float and tip over - wetting the contents, and dumping the cardboard box of stuff on top into the water also!!!) (Additional note to self --- keep the boots upstairs from now on!) Water lines on the walls, along with analysis of what had floated where, indicate about 2 feet of water in the lower section of the basement, and about 10" in the upper part. That skid - above- used to be on the other side of the room, and that yellow dresser drawer below - full of fairly heavy tools by the way, used to sit on the shelf below the green workbench! Our sump pump had pumped out most of the water by the time I got home, but obviously had not kept up during the storm. Our neighbors showed us pictures with Oakland Street beside our house, thigh deep in water, and water all the way up our driveway to our garage. Not much sympathy from the neighbors though because we all suffered pretty much equally!
Below is our brand new $600 installed water heater including some time spent trying to make the old one work!
Below - our dead furnace. Diagnosis # 1, a wet/corroded $460 circuit board. After replacement - diagnosis # 2 the $560 fan had seized up and was not going to run again! With our service contract - no charge for the repair visit and diagnosis, and 10% off on all parts. Still about $1000 with tax! Decision - install a new furnace since we have spent about $500 a year on repairs most every year since we moved in! New one will heat and cool the whole house (we currently have two - one for the front half, and one for the rear) Should cost around $7000, but savings on efficiency and on only having one furnace should be about $1500 a year! Add in the lack of repair bills, and we should break even in about 4 years.
I spent my day pumping out remaining water in low areas, running fans, moving wet stuff out into the yard to dry, etc. etc. I think I'll insist that the new furnace be up on blocks about a foot off the floor - we've had these floods twice before - we do live in about the lowest area in the neighborhood. The new hot water heater is up on blocks, but the plumber tells me that the newer ones are pretty much definitely dead if they get flooded because of new ways of doing things!
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