Floods and Updates

It was as I had expected. That inspector was definitely a hard ass. And the strange thing was, he had been instructed only to take pics of the boiler, the bathroom, and the kitchen. All of which are in perfect working order. Mike tried to explain to him that we'd made improvements to avoid cancellation and pointed these out to him, but no no. He didn't need any of that.

Apparently he had a photo of the house with the farmer's porch on it - so they'd been to the house before without our knowledge, taking pics of the exterior. And that's honestly fine with me - but we JUST added the railings a few days ago. Not to mention the gutters. Again, Mike tried to explain this, but to no avail.

When I found out around 4 yesterday, I immediately got on the phone with our rep to make her aware of it. She was going to be following up with the insurance company anyway. And she better not take any guff from them if they try to say things aren't done. I wish I could talk to them myself.... on second thought, probably not the best idea.

"Home insurance cancelled due to psychotic home owner." Yeah, I'm definitely a liability.

Anyway, long overdue, here are some pics of the recent inspection-ready improvements:

Gutters and downspouts on one side - Mike's advice - it is easier to put them together on the ground and then put them up as one unit instead of trying to attach them to the house piece by piece.

Gutter on the back - much needed!

Temporary porch railing - lookin good.

Ah the exterior lights are back up again. It's all for temp, but still...

Completed basement railing - a little funky, but still functional.

And now on to the drama.

After clicking on the title to this post you're probably wondering where the flood's at. Well, it was a dark and stormy night. (Last night.) We started out with snow in the morning, which changed to rain in the afternoon and evening as the temperature climbed from the 30's to the mid 50's! What an incredible change. The wind was wild, the fog was everywhere, and by the time I got home, melting snow was creating huge rivers and puddles.

Around 7 I suddenly turned down the volume on the TV - I heard water. Not just dripping water either - this was definitely a fast moving waterfall dripping on some kind of hard surface. We started walking around, hoping that it was just the new gutters doing their job. Unfortunately, when we reached the basement - we discovered our favorite back window leaking again.

And not a small leak either.

Immediately, Mike shut off the boiler - which you can see in the pic is right in the line of fire. I had to quickly prop up a wooden sleigh bed I was storing near by on a few pieces of wood to keep it out of the fast growing puddle - although luckily that was the only thing I was worried about being damaged.

Mike grabbed his gordan's fisherman outfit and rushed outside, where he discovered that it wasn't so much the falling rain off the roof, but a river of melting snow running off the hill, straight into the window.

He was outside for nearly an hour with a shovel and the skid steer trying to divert the oncoming tide. Meanwhile I'm in the basement snapping a few pics... I guess I nearly gave the poor guy a heart attack. He thought the flash was something electrical arcing out in the basement!

Note the faint line about halfway up the window glass - that's where the water is. Trapped in the window well. It looked like a fish tank.

Eventually Mike was able to divert the water and slow the flow as it were. The flood ended with a quick vacuum of the basement with the wet dry vac.

Thank god the inspector wasn't around for that!