There was this horrible smell coming out of the vents every time the heater came on. I went and checked the filter, and it was pretty dirty...apparently its been a while since I changed it last, oops. So thinking that was probably what was causing the smell I just used the heater as little as possible, which wasn't too hard since it was nice and warm on Thursday and Friday. Then Saturday when I went to the store, I bought a new filter.
Saturday it was colder and raining again, so I turned the heater on as soon as the new filter was in. But a couple hours later, and it still had this horrible smell...kind of like something had died and was rotting in the vents. At this point, I called my boyfriend to ask him what I should do.
He says he wants to come over anyway cause he's planning to build a better cover for our plants since its going to be cold and rainy off and on all week. Once he gets there we start wandering around in my basement to see if it really has nothing to do with my heater like I thought since he can't find a problem. We go into the spare bedroom and walk over to the far side, and his foot sinks into the carpet and makes this horrible squishing sound. What the hell?!?!?! Where is that coming from???
Immediately we check the bathroom, and its all good...no leaks. So since the water is against a wall, we go to the other side of the wall, which is my storage space, and there we find a HUGE puddle. There's so much water that when you step into the room your foot is surrounded by water and it splashes up on your pants like a puddle! All the stuff on the floor is soaked as well, not good. So immediately we unload the room and see if we can find where the water is coming from. The main water supply to the house comes in here, so we assume its leaking...but its not. With no idea where it started, its hard to figure out where its coming from. At that point we just decide to start cleaning up the water and see if that helps us figure out where its coming from and if its even still leaking.
Three hours later, the carpet is damp instead of like a swimming pool...and its 10pm. I finally get Sara to bed, she's been watching a moving laying in my bed the whole time we're cleaning up the water, and after placing a fan to dry the carpet a little more I go to bed too. And when I go check on it in the morning, what do I find?? Another puddle! But this one is smaller, so I have a better idea where the water is coming from.
At this point, I'm way out of my league. I call my step-dad, and an hour later he shows up and next thing I know he's ripping out carpet and a piece of the wall. But he finds the leak...and it isn't dripping, its a full on waterfall coming down the wall!! The water is leaking in around the main water pipe because the foundation is crumbled away. Not good!! Here's a pic of the section of wall we had to take out...and all the carpet is gone now too just leaving a cement floor. You can almost see the waterfall if you look really closely! (And I took this with my phone, so sorry the pic isn't better.)
I call my boyfriend and ask him if he has some kind of cement mix or something else to seal this with...and ideas would be helpful at this point cause we didn't have any good ones. He tells me he has a couple things that might work, and he'll gather up some things and be over in a few. We he gets there, the "boys" start talking about the best way to plug this hole. After a couple failed attempts, they come up with a plan they think will work...but of course, it means a run to Home Depot.
I grab the kids, load them in the car, and off we go while the "boys" stay behind and try to keep any more water from coming in. I get the stuff they want thanks to a very nice man at the store, and get back as quickly as I can. They jam some plumber's putty around the pipe to slow the water coming in so that the patch has a chance to stick. It takes a couple tries, but they finally manage to get the water to stop and the patch to stay in place! My heroes!!!!!
After the water has stopped, we head back upstairs and I make the kids go play (they've been watching a movie this whole time so that they were out of the way) and put the NASCAR race on while we wait to see if the patch continues to hold. We check on it a while later, and its still holding tight...and drying! Thank you God! After that, we all pitch in to clean up wall and carpet debris and gather up tools. And once they're both gone, I go back down and do my best to suck up as much water out of the remaining carpet as possible.
I checked on it again this morning, and its still holding. The plan at this point is to wait till it dries out, which will take a while since its still raining every other day and cement takes forever to really dry anyway, and then put tar over the top of the patch to really make sure it is water tight. Then we'll patch the wall back together, but the cement floor will stay. I have no plans to reinstall carpet in that room...mostly because its a storage space and doesn't need it.
My house still smells, but hopefully once the carpet dries out that will go away too! It will just take some time since its so wet and humid here. At this point though, that seems like such a small thing. But hopefully the worst is over and now its just finishing up the clean up and watching to make sure nothing develops mold while I wait for it all to dry out over the next couple weeks.
So that was my crazy weekend! I hope that all of you had a much better one than me.
That sounds like when we had a huge rug in the basement and the house kept getting stinky....well somehow I narrowed the smell down to the down under and I was walking all over the basement and sniffing everything in every direction and FINALLY my foot made a splash, and I figured it was kitty pee pee, but it wasn't.....our basement had a small leak and it had been pouring down rain for at least 3 or 4 days. So we threw the rug in the garbage and voila! no more stinky basement
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