I woke up last night and I felt the bed was wet. The first thing I thought is I’m reverting to childhood. Woe is me, a trip to the store for Depends. Then I thought George or Cat were trying to wake me up, and since I was in a deep sleep and dreaming about walking in the rain, they decided what the hell, we’ll show him.
But no, it wasn’t them or me. I finally became completely awake and turned on the light. I looked around and saw no one with water pistols lurking. I finally look up. There coming out of my ceiling was a large dark area with a shimmering pool of water drip, drip, dripping onto my bed. I knew we hadn’t had any storms, so what could it be?
I got dressed and climbed into the attic and there over my bedroom and bed was the air conditioner condenser with a large drip pan under it that was overflowing. The pipe had become clogged and water had no place to go. So remembering some basic physics about liquids taking the path of least resistance, it made complete sense to me that the path was straight to my bed.
I then set out to find the culprits of this clog, the makers of rainy dreams and Depends underwear nightmares. I finally found the pipe leading from the drip pan to the outside was clogged with mud and wasp like creatures flying all around. I immediately recognized them as “dirt daubers” or for non-southern people the dirt dauber is also called mud wasp, mud dauber, or potter wasp. For those with entomological inclinations:
Scientific Name: Chalybion, Sceliphron and other genera
Order: Hymenoptera: Sphecidae
Anyway, I prodded and poked the pipe to remove the mud and then got a garden hose to run water through the pipe to further unclog it. After about 30 seconds of this an epiphany of horror overtook me. I realized I was further flooding my bedroom. I stopped and rushed to the bedroom. To my horror the shimmering pool with water drops had turned into a torrent. The perfectly flat ceiling now had a bulge right over my bed.
Being very inquisitive and Mr. Home Repair, I jump on top of my bed and push at the bulge. My hand proceeded to go straight through the sheet rock, and once again physics came into play. I became part of the path of least resistance with water cascading over me onto the bed. Hah I thought. I’ve solved the dripping problem.
The water now drips to its appropriate place and I have a soggy ceiling with a hole in it. I’ve been entertaining dreams of again demonstrating my home repair expertise, but I’m holding off that for the moment. For now it’s drying things out and moving the bedroom around so there will be no repeat dreams of walking in the rain. I thought I am getting to old for this and to cover all bases I went out and purchased a pack of Depends. Just in case.
As I was following along, I was thinking No! Don’t push on the ceiling! Oops. 🙂
Definitely not the way to wake up. Did George and Cat sleep through all that?
They had sense enough to get down on the floor. All day they kept giving me this look like ‘you idiot’. But, what can you do.
The kind where you listen to the suffering of other people and how they deal with it and immediately think — glad it was him and not me.
I’m glad I was able to brighten your day. 🙂
I could write a book about this kinda stuff…esp. about remodeling old houses.
Thanks, I needed a laugh today…:{)
Peace
I’m glad I could oblige. It wasn’t funny at the time, but the more I look at it, it’s starting to be a little funny. Mind you just a little though.
Best Laugh of the Day, so far!
I’m trying to remember the last time I did something unenlightened. Might be the time the basement got a few inches of water in it due to downspouts not being attached while I was out of state.
I discovered card board boxes and water don’t mix well. So I’m emptying them all out and repacking and throwing stuff. Well, what to do with all the card board boxes? Well, I could carry them all up the step or burn them in the furnace, (combination wood and propane). Well the burning went just fine, except that the box I’d set on top of the furnace plenum burst into flame too. Well, I’m thinking I should run upstair for the fire extinguisher, but then I realize I already have bucket of water in my hands from wet-vaccing the floor, so whooosh, got the fire out. Now what to do with a basement full of smoke!
Bet we’d have some interesting reading if everyone shared a few of their stories.
dada says he’s got a book’s worth, well… a sample would be good… and we could give a rec on whether to continue on to the manuscript process.
I think that would make a good continuing diary.
What not to do in certain situations.
Pushing a bulging ceiling is at the top of my list. 🙂
Remodeling a c. 1924 bungalow that had been pretty seriously abused over the years…bad additions, etc.
Decided to remove one particularly ill conceived one on the back that contained a bath room and laundry room to create a sun porch and terrace/deck to the back yard.
Turned off the H2O at the sink, wc, wd etc…removed same. Tore out all the and lath, plaster, etc.
Proceeded to shut off valve for entire house and turned it off to cut off and remove the old piping.
Grabbed the sawsall and went at it only to be greeted by a geyser rivaling Old Faithful…note: main H2O pressure here is in excess of 100psi…SHIT!!!!! Ran out to the meter pit in the front yard and shut it off there. Turns out they’d tapped in to the primary water line ahead of the shut off valve and P-reducing valve and it was all hidden in the bsmt ceiling…wtf? Many 100’s of gallons of water running free in the house, down into the furnace ductwork and out the door…very ugly. We had to replace the subfloor, finish floor and the entire basement ceiling and a whole bunch of drywall/plaster…Not fun…but I can laugh about it now.
Peace
The mind only reels at what further episodes you might come up with…
The House from Hell…that particular little 3-4 month project ended up taking damn near a year.
It got to the point that every time I’d start something, I’d double the cost, and the schedule, and still missed them.
Don’t miss that puppy…:{)
Peace
But think of the joy of doing it yourself. After it was done, didn’t you feel poorer, exhausted and just damn pissed off.
Who could want more?
Anything WORTH doing is Worth paying for.
Life is much better now…Ohhhhhmmmmmmmmm
Peace
Your story reminded me of my dad. He was a frustrated engineer. Due to circumstances (the Depression, the War, being the least favored son of the family, me then my brother) he didn’t get the formal engineering training he would have loved. But it never stopped him from thinking like an engineer. Both the houses I grew up in were graced with little cupboards with extra storage, pulleys and cables that opened and closed doors. Wasted space was his anathema.
When Andi and I built our house we wanted to have a trap door to our basement because we didn’t want a wall breaking up our living space. Dad looked over the situation and said we needed a counter weight. Our counter weighted trap door still amazes any workers who need to access our basement.
Dad made tools for himself too. As I said, he was a child of the Depression and every scrap of metal or wood had potential to be useful. Hanging on a peg in our house (post and beam construction = plenty of pegs) is a paint stirer that dad made out of a scrap of quarter inch steel rod. He split it with a hacksaw and then curved and balanced the blades testing it in a bucket of water until he had a perfect vortex. I know all of this because for years I thought my name was “Stand-here” or “Hold-this”.
The reason your story made me think of my dad was that for all of the engineering talent that resided in him, plumbing baffled him all of his life. He worked nights and I can not tell you the number of times I woke up to “Goddamnedsonofabitch”. If alcohol is a demon to some fathers, water was my Dad’s demon.
Finally, he seemed to come to peace with it though. Several years after he died, my mom was having some plumbing work done and the plumber called her down to the basement to show her why she’d been smelling sewer gas, experiencing a sluggish drain, and to explain why the repair would be more expensive than he’d quoted. It seems Dad in making peace with his plumbing demon had been seduced by the duct tape demon. He’d repaired a broken pipe joint with it.
I look at ductape as Gods gift to man. It can be used from simple repairs to repairing holes in walls (of course that’s a southern thing).
I’ve even seen pictures of people making clothes out of it. That’s pushing it a little to far even for us down here though.
Anytime something plumbing-related breaks my wife tells the kids*, “Quick! Get your father’s tools! If we hurry we can minimize the damage and expense.”
“What, by letting Dad fix it?” they dutifully say.
“No, by hiding them so he can’t find them,” she replies.
* OK, so I stole this from a comic strip. Which one I’ve long since forgotten. But it’s true. Every time in my life I’ve tried to fix something plumbing related we’ve had to call in a plumber and pay through the nose. Now I don’t even bother. Happy is the man who knows his limitations.
I’m the eternal optimist thinking nothing can be that hard. After 5 or 6 tries and at least 10 trips to the hardware store, I finally give up.
Daddy!
Some of you have heard bits and pieces of the Great Floor Finishing Ordeal but this is a new one:
When we first looked at our current house, we thought it had a whole house water filtration system to process the well water and that was great. The day before the closing, the real estate agent says, “Do you intend to keep the water softener?” Huh? Turns out it was a rental; $26 per month, so we keep it.
Couple of months go by and it sinks in that it’s a water softener system, i.e., it’s only taking out calcium by running the water thru salt. Some days the water tastes so salty it makes me thirsty to drink it. Hubby messes around with the salt flow; the water tastes great and I’m happy.
Hubby then ponders the fact that the system is not really filtering the water and claims that he turned the whole thing off. The water still tastes great so I agree we don’t need it. He has the rental guys come and take the system away. I run a couple of loads of wash and… the water tastes like rust and smells like sulfur! I run to the store and buy gallon jugs of water. I am very unhappy and it’s a Monday. Hubby says, live with it for a week and next Saturday I’ll put in a whole house filter and all will be good again.
He decides we need two filters: one under the kitchen sink for double-filtered drinking water and a really big one for the whole house. We spend over a hundred bucks. He installs the kitchen filter and then fags out; he had a hard week at work and he’s exhausted.
So I put off taking a shower for another week and brush my teeth at the kitchen sink. Following weekend he’s on-call and ends up working the whole dang weekend. Another week passes and I break down and have to take a shower. Did I mention I’m allergic to sulfur? Yeah, I break out in a rash and itch all over but I suffer on stoicly.
I know I’ve told everyone that my son and his family are coming to visit tomorrow. So all week I’m getting a tad more anxious about the water problem. “Don’t worry, honey,” Hubby assures, “I’ll get it done in the evenings after work. Monday night, Hubby works til midnight. Tuesday, it’s 10pm. Wednesday and Thursday, he’s exhausted. Friday, I confront him and he admits that he’s really been confused and only just figured out how to put in new pipes to accomodate the monstrous whole house filter. But, not to worry, he’ll get it done this weekend.
Now, if you are counting on your fingers you’ll realize I have done without decent water — except at the kitchen sink — for an entire month now. I gave up drinking alcohol a month and a half ago and this has sorely tested my resolve, I tell ya’.
Yesterday, Hubby goes out to put together his Rube Goldberg array of pipes and taps and supports. Attempting to install the shelf to support this apparatus, he drops a 2×4 and smashes the pipe that connects the well pump to the house. Yep, no water at all! None. No flushing toilets. No washing of dishes. No cleaning and cooking in prep for the big visit.
He sends me on repeated trips to the local hardware store for replacement “elbows,” “nipples” and a “T-joint.” Fortunately, I bought a 12-pak of water for road trips so I’m not dehydrating and could still brush my teeth last night. He works steadily but, as night falls, the job remains undone.
It starts to rain torrentially and I run outside with buckets and trash cans so that we can, at least, flush the toilets and give water to our baby chicks. I washed my face this morning in rain water warmed in the microwave.
It is now 5pm and he is still working in the pump room. I am afraid to go ask him when he thinks he’ll be finished. Last night, he said it would only take another couple of hours to get it done. He’s been working since 9am this morning and I don’t hear water rushing thru the pipes yet.
I think when I go to pick up my son and his family tomorrow we may check into a motel…
I’ve got plenty of water in my bedroom if that would help. Not sure how fed-ex would handle it though. 😉
in that delightful story is a dirty joke about your bed being the path of least resistance. I’ll let it go.
Funny story! 🙂
What no zinger form SN?
Unfortunately my bed and room is the path for dogs, cats and water. Some poeple have no luck at all.
Somewhere in that delightful comment from SN is a zinger.
I’ll let it go….;o)
I’m still laughing over the depends to cover “all bases” line :o)
Great Sunday afternoon laugh Family Man.
I am so sorry your bed and ceiling are destroyed. Might I suggest a call to a home renovation company and a visit to a mattress store. LOL
You could suggest it, but I’m going to fix this myself. I figure I already know what not to do, so it should be easy from there.
…another Home Repair diary is in our reading future! 😉
Yes but this one will be about how I did everything just perfect. Even if I didn’t. 🙂
Uh-oh!!!!
God I love DIY-people. When I think of all the times we’ve been called to fix something already “fixed”. . . .
Yes but one day we will learn to do it the right way.
Until then count yourself gainfully employed. 😉
OMG
Step. Away. From. The. Ceiling, Family Man. Before. Somebody. Gets. Hurt.
I’m laughing at you AND with you!
Umm, I take it that you didn’t have a waterbed. (Although you might have one now.) < Rimshot >
No more of a squish bed. Sort of the sound of a water bed, but the firmness of a regular mattress.
I could go farther into that line of thought, but I won’t. 😉
you could use the Depends to plug the hole in the ceiling… 😉
I’ll add this story to my list of “Reasons Why I’m Grateful for Apartment Life”… 🙂
Yes, indeed… I noticed dripping and a very slight sagging of my bathroom ceiling. I put a bucket under the leak and called downstairs to the desk to request maintenance.
When I got home that evening, leak was fixed. I kept an eye on that part of the ceiling for some time afterwards, but it didn’t leak again.
Took them another six months (and another phone call reminding them of the problem, which I finally got around to) to fix the actual ceiling, but now it’s almost good as new. Apartment living has some advantages…
That being said, I know there ARE fix-it types out there who can even handle plumbing (that seemed to be my dad’s primary occupation whenever we visit my mom’s parents back in the early 90s). There are people who tinker with cars and change their own oil too, and I’m doing well to know where the dipstick is.
Hats off to anyone who attempts real home repair… And I hope you get your bedroom back in order soon, FM! Thanks for the story, I feel for you!
JanetT you hit the nail on the head when you said ‘attempts’. The last thing I tried to fix was a leak under the bathroom sink. I went to the hardware store five time and still couldn’t get everything right. After two days of trying I said to hell with it and call our local repair man who had it done in ten minutes.
He never leaves our house without laughing his head off.
There ya go. Of all the problems to fix in a house, plumbing is the most frustrating. I’ve seen even the pros nearly break down when they find that one stupid part – on a truck with hundreds – isn’t onboard.
There’s a nasty joke that comes to mind, but I ain’t going to say it. 😉
frantically trying to drain my waterbed with plastic tubing they use in hospitals. It had leaked (and how could it not with all the cats I have?). The ceiling below had taken its toll. But it takes for EVER to drain using small tubing.
I never tried the small tube waterbed thing, but I wish I had a waterbed now. Just some sheets and padding to clean up instead of a whole mattress.
and as I was screwing in the bolt so nicely, I heard a cracking, popping sound along with the white dust that was falling from the window frame. Every turn of the screw was taking off the window frame from the wall. Yikes!
Solution: shorter bolts. Curtains do look nice now, a lovely Tuscan gold colour, linen/cotton.
That has to be one of the worst household jobs I hate. Hanging curtains and I just don’t get along, especially when someone is directing the hanging. So what if they tilt at a 45 degree angle. Just adds a flare to the decor.
Tim!!!! Tim Allen!!!! I wondered what happened to you.
Trying to get a new sitcom, but it’s looks like blogging is in the cards. 😉
((Family Man))) man oh man!
Myhusband is a electronic/math geek. He is NOT a carpenter. He thought he was for a few years in the beginning of our marriage.
Finally after several “attempts” at building things with wood… he has learned that if I wanted to married to a carpenter – I’d be married to some dude named Jesus.
Not Wayne.
Sign me – the woman who had a TV shelf built that was unable to be removed in ONE piece from her home and owner of a foot stool that weighs more than some small cars.
Janet you should be proud of your husband. It sounds like he builds things to last and last and last. Heavy duty, that’s the only way to build furniture.
That is until you have to move it. 😉
Nope.
He’s an electrical engineer guru guy. Which means, you guessed it, I have no fucking idea how to turn on the stereo!
And the wires… we’ve got wires and speaker cable everyfuckingwhere.
😛
You women haven’t figured it out yet. Mostly men do the hookups of the stereo components and connectors and all the mumbo jumbo that goes with it. Between the stereo and bathroom what else do we have. The bathroom we have to share, but the stereo, ah ha, we are the kings.
At least any man worth anything will tell you that even when he doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing. 😉
Ahem… I researched, bought and hooked up our Yamaha YHT750 and wired it up. It worked. We all could use it.
We moved, he hooked it up and NONE of us can use it without his guidance… ACK
You just made my point. When a man does it, it takes on a mystical sense of gadetry. When women hook them up, it straight to the point and no fun in figuring out which button to push.
…except when it comes to the men in our lives of course…
😉
LOL I bow to that euphemism.