There were many delays in our backyard work as copious amounts of rain decided to fall in early may, but finally on a lovely monday the weather was fabulous and the landscapers (I plan to write a whole post on how fabulous these guys were) were really kicking it with the new stone patio. I was thrilled. I could hear the buzz of saws, the sprays of hoses, the thumping of their music.
Around 5 I had picked up all the kids and was sitting in our living room for the first time that day and I could hear this bizarre noise coming from the vent. Perplexed, I tried checking to see if the heat or a/c was running – it wasn’t. So I ventured to the basement to see if anything was going on in the furnace room.
What I found was our newly installed indoor swimming pool!
Context: Carpet looks dry because water was underneath - you can see footprints wherever we stepped down
There was so much water in the basement that the carpet was floating. There was so much water on the floor that when I took a photo the lights are reflecting in the water.
The pipe to the hose had burst. The guys outside (and this was zero % their fault) had the water on with the hose nozzle off. What that meant was that the water was running into our walls and basement for I believe HOURS before I found it.
They felt awful and bailed the basement for an hour and a half! The reason the water had risen so high was discovered by the company insurance sent a few hours later – the guy who lived in our house before duct taped the drain shut before laying the carpet. NOTE: DO NOT DO THAT! If you think it will stop a sewage back up you are wrong. If you think it will make a basement flood a hell of a lot worse and that’s what you’re going for then you may as well go for it.
Insurance and the company they sent were amazing, my landscaping guys were amazing. If nothing else this experience was nice in that getting to see how helpful and warm and genuine people can be when things go wrong is really really nice.
I am weeks behind in the telling of this story. I will get to subsequent parts of this story sooner than this second part got up I hope. If you take anything away from this it should be :
a) make sure you have good insurance
b) never be surprised by the dumbass things people will do
c) there’s always a bright side. Maybe this was the one part of the house I had no desire to redo, but we will be getting nicer paint colours, more carpeting and a chance at a do-over on the messiness and organization of the basement. Worse things can happen.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
On the plus side, that stone patio is gorgeous
I agree with Amy – the patio looks lovely!
Ravi Shanghavi, Ottawa.
Do you have photos of the final production you can share? Meeting with Bryan hopefully later this week.