busted

friday afternoon i heard a big bang that shook the entire house around 12:30p. i stood there and listened intently, nothing. i shrugged it off thinking it was a gust of wind. a few hours later i grab a picture frame and head down to the basement. when i hit the bottom step i hear a buzzing noise. sounds like a generator pumping. i look towards the noise and then down. WTF!! it's water! i step down and i'm standing in half an inch of water. i turn to my left, my right, where the hell is this water coming from? i run upstairs and call aaron's office. "this is dr. westphal's wife, i have an emergency, i need to talk to him!" he answers and i start talking non-stop.

"the basement is flooding, i have no idea where the water is coming from, what do i do?!"
"did a pipe burst?" he asks.
"i don't know, i hear a gushing/buzzing noise, i guess that could be water." holding the phone up to the noise. "hear it?"
"yeah, turn off the water line."

i turn off the water and the noise starts to dissipate. thank goodness. i tell him i tried calling todd and jerome and can't get a hold of either one. i ask him if i should go to their job site, since maybe they're not getting phone reception. that's probably a good idea he tells me, he'll be home as soon as he's done seeing his patients.

i corral the dogs into the car and head over the job site. i get there and it's empty. i start to panic. i head back home and call my brother. "who do i call about a busted water line?" a plumber he tells me. i get home and thumb through all my basement construction papers, looking for the plumber todd hired to do all the plumbing in the basement. my phone rings. it's jerome. "i'm on my way." he tells me. a wave of relief gushes over me.

he gets there and i show him where the noise was coming from. he tells me it looks like's it could be the line to the outside spicket. he cuts a 10x12 hole into the drywall and sure enough there's a crack running down the length of the pipe. he said he'll cap off the line for now, so we can have water to the rest of the house but we'll have to replace the line in the upcoming weeks. i ask him if the carpet is ruined. he tells me as long as we get all the water out, it should be fine.

so we've spent a majority of the weekend sucking the water out of the carpet using a shopvac and my "pee-pee" vac. luckily the carpet pad we opted for is supposed to be moisture resistant. and so far the carpet is still damp but no longer squishes when you walk on it. i think the only damage done is to some of the molding which is easily replaceable. thank god! most of the storage boxes we have are those five gallon plastic tubs. all-in-all the damage has been minimized.

i'm so glad and thankful we have todd and jerome when it comes to home "problems." having someone we can trust and is so knowledgeable when it comes to home repair is such a blessing. i'm almost positive if i'd have called someone else the whole wall would be ripped out right now.

the first pic is what my pants looked like after working for two hours. damn, those knee holes are a lot larger than i realized. i think the end is near for them.