Skip to main content

Water, Water, Everywhere

Have I ever mentioned my incredible disdain for basements?

Basements and I have a notoriously bad reputation of getting along. They are the Hatfields to my McCoy. The bane of my existence. The reason for every bad thing that's ever happened to me.

Okay, that may be slightly exaggerated, but I want you to understand how. Serious. I. Am.

I have never had a basement that hasn't at one point or another inadvertently become an indoor pool. The first house I lived in while growing up, flooded at least once that I remember. The second house, flooded on multiple occasions, usually in my basement bedroom, which required being able to quickly and efficiently remove all my possessions to higher ground.

Recently in the middle of the night I awoke to the sound of rushing water. I immediately ran downstairs and found water pouring from the basement ceiling. I turned off the main water valve, while swearing several a few curse words.

A water pipe had burst due to the freezing temperature outside and an extreme lack of insulation in the house.

The basement in this house has had more water in it than I care to think about. Multiple burst pipes, backed up sewer, and a detached washing machine drainage hose just to name a few.

It has gotten so bad that for my next birthday I have requested a shop vac from my husband to ease the clean up process.

The point you ask?

To tell you about a little gadget we got a couple years back, that has probably saved us thousands in water damage.

It's a water detector.

You can pick it up at hardware stores or online. I think we got ours at Menards. They have a little metal strip that sets off an ear piercing alarm when it gets wet.

It is battery operated, so I just replace the batteries twice a year, the same time I replace the fire alarm batteries, when the time changes. Which by the way, it's spring ahead time on March 10th!

I set our water detector near the drainage hole in our basement floor, because that tends to be where a lot of our water issues occur. The floor is sloped towards the hole, so water naturally runs that direction when we have a problem.

This is possibly the most incredible device ever! It has gone off dozens of times and I can hear it all the way upstairs and I can get the main water valve shut off before the water mess becomes worse.

Buy one.

It will give you piece of mind that that evil thing they call a basement will not become an indoor swimming pool.

Do you have any gadgets around your house that have been life savers? I'd love to hear about them!

Have a lovely day!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Changes

I was cleaning today, which gave me time to think, and thinking always leads me here. The house is 'weekend messy', so decided to clean my floors, because The Nester says if your floors are clean the rest of the house feels clean too, even if it isn’t.  I have found that it is pretty good advice, so when everything else feels chaotic, I clean the floors. Of course for me, cleaning the floors also means picking up the toys, shoes, clothes, etc. so that I can even begin to vacuum, which naturally leads to a cleaner home as well.  While cleaning up I began to think about how this blog has evolved over the years, from a desire to write like The Nester about home, into what it is now.  I started writing this blog when I was dreaming of building a new home. Then plans changed, life took turns, and we ended up in a home so different than I expected and so perfect for our family. Somewhere along the way I realized that home wasn’t in the walls that went up or in ...
15 comments
Read more

Ordinary Magic

I am still here. Despite all the challenges of the past year, you are reading this and I am writing it, so we we made it. I won't even try to wrap up what we have all been through, I am just going to acknowledge we all lived and processed through the past year by whatever means necessary.  As I look back on it, it's crazy to think how much fear and heartache the last year held but also how much joy and ordinary life as well.  It's been quiet here on the blog as some of you have noticed and checked in on me. The quiet gave way to the most exciting thing though, I am now a published author, along with some incredible friends! The devotional, Lighthouse Collections— Beacons of Light in Life's Storms, is a work of passion and prayers. My dear friend Megan Miller contacted me last year about contributing to a devotional and I was thrilled to be included. Between going back to school for my Masters degree and writing for the devotional, I had not found the time or the words t...
2 comments
Read more

And the Stocking were hung by the Fireplace

Booyah! Homemade stockings hung by the fireplace? Check! I am so thrilled to have completed these! You have no idea! Let me preface this by stating I am not a 'sewer', hmmm I think that is sewer like where your toilet water goes, and I mean sewer as in 'one who sews'. Ok, you get the idea. I did sew for 4-H growing up, but otherwise I really just bust it out only when circumstances call for it, such as these stockings. So now that we have covered the fact that I am admittedly not going to call myself a seamstress, that's a better word, here's how I made these babies! I have a general sense of what sewing is. I do not do the whole, buy a pattern and pin it together and mark where to tuck and etc etc. No, I'm to impatient for all of that. I am more of a trial and error kind of gal. And I have to say there was very little error on these stockings. In fact my first one turned out the best. Probably because I took my time and was careful. Also plaid is my new f...
2 comments
Read more