Quilting Room Flood of 2015

Friday night after supper, Louie and I went to the car wash so we could get some pictures of a clean dented door to send to the body shop, then he went off to play pool with the ‘boys’. I was watching television, but then decided to work on a couple sewing machines that were sitting on my kitchen floor. I turned off the tv, turned on the radio and started working.

I worked on the first sewing machine and got it working just fine, and set it aside. The second machine I was working on was missing the foot control. I thought the one from the first machine I just worked on would fit, but I wasn’t that lucky. I went downstairs to my quilting room, because I have some sewing parts in a cupboard in that room, and when I turned on the light, this is what I saw. Oh my goodness, Oh my goodness!!!

I walked through the puddle to turn on more lights so I could see what was happening. My first thought was the hot water heater, which is in my quilting room. Nope, it looked dry under the hot water heater, but when I walked across the room to turn on more lights, I got sprayed in the face with water! What the heck?!!! Where was it coming from? I walked past again and got sprayed again!! I finally realized it was spraying out of the water feed line that goes into the humidifier which is attached to our furnace. Now what do I do? I wasn’t sure how to turn it off, I didn’t know what to do, so I grabbed a small waste basket and tried to at least stop it from spraying me in the face! The slippers I had on acted like a two huge sponges. Well, they had to go! Do you know that walking barefoot in water on a vinyl tiled floor is very slippery? Oh yes!

I finally found the shut off to the water line, then I called Louie and told him he needed to come home right away, because my quilting room was flooded. It seemed like forever, but he did come right home. The water had even started coming into our family room in the basement. We have had floods in the past, but it never came this far!

Louie brought down his BIG shop vac, and I sucked up water for about an hour. I spent a lot of time pulling water out of the rugs. Louie emptied the shop vac once, and the water level was just below the hose, so he thinks about 12 gallons. He brought it back and I sucked up about another 4 gallons.

The last time we had a flood, it was from the filter on the same humidifier which had pretty much limed up, disintegrated, and poured water all over the floor, but it wasn’t as bad as this time. We removed the big rug under the quilter, and it was quite a mess. This time, I kept vacuuming until I thought it was just damp. We put some boards under the rug, put the fans on it and left it for the night.

This morning I got up, and went downstairs to check on things. There was still a LOT Of dampness under the rug, so I decided just to pull out the rug and take it out of there. It’s not fun when I have to clean up water, but the rugs are what is the hardest to remove water from, so I took out the big one and a couple little ones. They are NOT going back in. Right now they are rolled up and standing on end near the drain in my laundry room. I think I will just put them in the basement show which we never use anyway, forget about them, and someday when they are dry, I will decide where they will go.

The wet carpet in the family room is drying nicely.

I cut the water line and pulled it out of the clips and pointed the end into the waste basket since it is still attached to the valve, and it is still dripping.

The good thing about this flood, is I got my quilting room tidied up a bit. I would rather have done it when I was ready to do it, but now it is done. The floor is clean and shiny, and we just have to replace the water line.

We picked up the new water line today. It is flood proof, so hopefully, we won’t get flooded again…..at least not from this water line.

I don’t know how long water had been spraying to produce 16 gallons on the floor, but I am very grateful that I found it when I did. It could have been a LOT LOT worse. I feel very blessed. It was just a minor inconvenience compared to what it COULD have been! Hopefully we can get it installed tomorrow.

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Update February 1, 2015

Everything looked nice and dry today in the quilting room, so I removed the fans. I took the the ‘still dripping’ rolled up rugs from the laundry room and moved them to the basement shower, stood them on end, and put the fan on them. Maybe they will be dry in about a week. Who cares? They are out of the way.

My sweetie installed the new Flood Safe water line today and turned the humidifier back on.

I dare it to leak!