Quick Update

No more pictures just yet, but I thought I'd provide a brief update.

It turns out that the water break was not due to a frozen pipe. Instead, one of the two, one-and-one-half year old shutoff valves for the hot and cold lavatory water faucets in the half bath just "blew apart" (the plumber's technical description, not mine). He said it wasn't a very high quality one, and so we have brought that to the attention of the firm that handled our bath and kitchen updates something like a year and a half ago! What this also means is that we no longer have any idea when the break actually occurred, as we are now unable to relate it to weather conditions. Nevertheless, it is likely, given the amount of water and damage, that it was pouring out for two or more days.

ServiceMaster was back this morning to check on things. They will return each day to take moisture readings and adjust the drying process. There is still some possibility that they may have to rip the sheetrock off the north wall of the living room in order to fully dry the area on that outside wall where the leak was concentrated. We noted this morning that you can see an arc perfectly below our half bath and imprinted on the outside brick. That part of the brick facia is completely soaked.

Our bathroom is beginning to dry out. The living room is going most slowly. The basement is showing quite a bit of improvement in terms of drying out. However, we have been asked to keep the temperature at about 73 degrees (really hot and uncomfortable for us). Even with all the fans and the heavy duty dehumidifiers, the humidity in the house seems stuck at about 80%. We are getting lots of condensation everywhere, especially now that it has dropped to near zero outside. I guess this is just something to have to live through for a short while. ServiceMaster says it will take from 3 to 5 days to dry, maybe more.

I spend several hours this morning polishing the beds and tables of my power tools with steel wool this morning. The rust was almost exclusively surface rust--tightly stuck to the beds and tables, but no pitting, thank goodness. I was able to get them quite smooth again (most important), even if quite discolored, and I put a heavy coat of paste wax on them right away. This is something I had just done last week before we went to WI, but it wasn't enough for the amoung of water we got on them. Anyway, I'm feeling mostly better about my tools, though several table extensions, made of particle board, are swelling up and deforming and will need to be replaced. Most of my individual small tools, router bits, and similar items seem to be OK so far. I'll be able to tell more in a day or so.

We have lost an older (not critically important) laptop computer, a number of books, and probably at least one overstuffed chair. We aren't sure yet about what else may be damaged.

One problem is that the insurance adjuster hasn't gotten back to us yet or stopped over. I'll be complaining to the company in the morning. That has kept us from moving ahead on very much, since we have questions about what we can/can't do and also want her/him to see the damage first hand before we change anything.

Living with all of this noise (it really does sound like being inside a jet), the very high humidity, and the high temperatures is making the place somewhat unpleasant. However, we have to be here to handle calls and certain repair calls. So, we have found a couple of places in which to retreat, including a bedroom where we can just close the heat registers for comfortable nighttime sleeping conditions. And this afternoon, we just took off and escaped to a movie for awhile. We saw Atonement, which we recommend.

So, I think that's all there is to report for now. I'll surely have more news and, I hope, progress and pictures to report in the days to come.