I’m not even sure where to begin! This Christmas weekend was quite a doozy.
Last Friday morning, with temperatures in St. Louis dipping into the negatives, we woke up to a broken furnace. We’re on the third floor of a three-floor building, so we have tall ceilings and nearly direct exposure to anything above us (i.e., the cold outside). It was around 60 degrees inside all day.
I took a look at the furnace, which is in the crawlspace directly above our ceiling. I don’t know anything about furnaces, but it was very cold up there, and there was a lot of ice in the drip pan. Oddly, we could manually turn the furnace on, but it would turn off after a few minutes.
Even though it was colder at night, we had a harder time during the day; at night at least our body heat was trapped under the blankets. Saturday morning was the roughest time, as I woke up to 55 degree temperatures inside.
Fortunately, Megan’s brother is quite handy, and he spent some time on Saturday fiddling around with the furnace. The current problem was that the ice was telling a sensor to turn off the furnace. The bigger problem was that there shouldn’t be that much ice (or water) in the pan in the first place, so Eric found a few leaks and sealed them. The furnace is now working better than it has in months. A Christmas miracle!
Then a pipe burst.
Throughout the frigid couple of days, Megan kept a space heater on the pipes in her bathroom and the sink water running at a trickle to prevent the pipes from freezing. Despite that, her hot water wasn’t working.
Midway through Saturday afternoon–just a few hours before we were hosting a big Christmas Eve dinner–she happened to be in the bathroom when she heard a pop, and water began gushing into the room along the tile from a corner.
We dashed around, grabbing towels and trying to figure out what to do. I turned off her toilet water, which didn’t help, and then I remembered that there were a few shutoff valves in our closet, which shares a wall with her bathroom. I managed to twist one of the valves–it’s a tight space–and the water turned off. It was on for maybe 5 minutes.
This wasn’t great, but it also wasn’t a disaster, as we had water…just not hot water. So I alerted my downstairs neighbor of the issue by text and we proceeded with our dinner plans.
However, just as we were about to serve dinner, I got a text from my first-floor neighbor saying that she had water pouring through her ceiling onto her bed. Eric and I dashed down there to take a look, and we quickly realized that Megan’s bathroom leak was still flooding into the walls (and had been for the last hour). We turned off the water to our entire unit, and the downpour turned to a trickle.
I’ll spare you the details, but the next 24 hours were very interesting, as water became an incredibly precious commodity. We had no water to drink, to wash our hands or dishes, shower, or to flush the toilets. We started scouting places where we could do those things, and we filled up big water bottles at every opportunity. It made me really appreciate something I’ve taken for granted.
I had called a dozen plumbers on Saturday night in the hopes of getting help, but they were all flooded with requests (a lot of pipes burst in St. Louis on Friday and Saturday). Somehow, one of them called me back on Sunday, and a father-son team showed up that afternoon for the biggest tip I’ve ever given anyone. They tore open the wall and had me turn the water on and off several times, with them monitoring from above and me checking on my first-floor neighbor. They found the leak and capped it, allowing water to resume as normal in all other rooms except for Megan’s bathroom (we’re fortunate to have a second bathroom).
And that’s where we remain today. Despite the ordeal, I feel incredibly lucky by the circumstances, people, timing, and resources, as it could have been much worse. I didn’t even mention that my mom was visiting from out of state and was planning to stay with us; fortunately there’s a hotel nearby that felt like the ultimate luxury of heat AND running water. Hopefully the plumber will return later this week, but I understand that they have higher priorities with people who don’t have any water right now.
How were your holidays? Have you ever had a one-two punch of home issues happen like this?
Oh man what a mess. I’m sorry. We had some major issues at our house in 2018 and long terrible story but we ended up with no running water in the entire house for over a week from before Christmas til after New Years Day. I quickly grew to appreciate the access to clean and constant water that I had come to take for granted. The folks at the gym couldn’t believe how often they were seeing us (we showered there) and used the local gas station bathroom. It was a rough week and we also had to rescind our offer to house family for the holiday. Ever since then I’ve contributed monthly to Charity: Water which helps to bring clean water to people in areas that do not have access to it. We are so fortunate to almost never have to think about such an important thing… so many others are not. It was an eye opening week for me, that’s for sure. Hard to imagine living where clean water might be a day’s walk away, at best.
I’m so sorry you went through that, and I think it’s wonderful that you’ve found a way to pass on your gratitude for others. I was thinking about that locally (perhaps helping people who can’t afford a plumber), but I think Charity: Water sounds like a great approach to pay it forward. Thank you for sharing!
Wow Jamey,
I’m so sad to hear things turned out so awful . Bring cold is zero fun, I would personally be a little hungry then be too cold .
Thankfully you had the foresight to text the neighbour below and be able to get the plumbers out.
We came back off holiday many years ago to the downstairs all flooded out by a few inches of water in parts.
The drip has come through the ceiling from the bathroom ( someone hadn’t turned a bath tsp off enough) and it had run along the bath, to the floor and below .
The water had hit a light fitting and socket on a wall and tripped the electrics .
The worst was the fridge freezer, I can still smell that stench now when we opened the door .
It took hours to bleach out the fridge freezer , all food disposed of .
Funnily I tried all sorts in the fridge to completely get rid of the smell and it was some charcoal activated little hook up things I purchased online from USA that sorted it out.
This will be an infamous Christmas you refer back to soon enough.
Hope the plumber returns quickly and everything is all working shortly 🙂
Thanks Mark! I’m so sorry you had a flood in your place as well, especially one that happened when you weren’t home to stop it. The freezer smell must have been truly terrible! 🙂
Jamey,
Sadly, we’ve never encountered anything like that until Christmas Eve, just a few short days ago. The pipe which services the fire sprinkler system shattered and flooded the area above our Master Bedroom. It caved-in, destroying the Master Bedroom before flooding our kitchen, and eventually the two car garage which I had asked the builder to keep as a Game Room/Study.
We’re in the throes of a demolition, pack-out for 6-months, renovation, and eventually move back, probably around June. Sadly, we’ve only been in the house for less than 60 days. As an aside, while I managed to save several hundred titles, I did add nearly two dozen games to the Loss Inventory, including my copy of the Scythe hardback book of pictures (that was heartbreaking).
It’s amazing how quickly our lives can be turned upside down. Always remember that things can be replaced…people can’t. Glad your story had a good ending; I’ll let you know if ServPro lives up to is tagline, “Luke it never happened.”
Cheers,
Joe
Oh no, Joe–I’m so sorry about that huge level of destruction to your new house. That’s terrible. When you’re ready, please let me know so I can send you another Scythe art book.