True Story (Life Blogging)

There's a drain, there's always been a drain, from my hot water heater down through the floor to direct water away from the house in case the appliance ever overflowed for some reason.  The drain discharged out behind the house as it was originally built.

The house was apparently expanded at some point, and the new master bedroom, my bedroom, was built out over the original foundation wall and above the discharge point for the hot water overflow. The funny part, the really hilarious part, is that they didn't extend the discharge line to out beyond the new exterior wall when they built the extension, but left it right where it was underneath the master bedroom.

That apparently worked fine for some 30 years or so, as the hot water heater apparently didn't overflow.  However, it stopped working about a year ago and I had a replacement installed.

The installation didn't go well and that's a whole other hilarious story that we can get into some other time, as it will just distract us for now.  But the point here is that when they hooked up the new hot water heater, the plumbers never bothered to see where the discharge line went but just hooked it up as it was, so that the outflow was still beneath my bedroom.

Next, in probably the most obvious inevitability imaginable, the new hot water heater began to overflow.  Apparently, the incoming pressure valve for water to the house failed, then the water pressure in the house got too high for the hot water heater, so the heater's pressure-relief valve blew. That stopped the pressure of hot water in the holding tank from building up too high and kept the tank from exploding (that's a good thing), but it also allowed hot water to start pouring out the drain line and discharge beneath the bedroom.

I didn't notice anything at first.  I still had hot water for showers, dishes, etc., so everything seemed normal,.and besides I had some kick-ass water pressure.  But I did sometimes notice a trickling sound late at night when everything was very, very quiet, and then I noticed that the floorboards in my bedroom were starting to warp for some reason, and finally, when the seasons changed and I didn't need to run the AC any more, the whole house started becoming uncomfortably humid. And then I got the monthly water bill. $425.

A new plumber came by today.  He diagnosed the problem, determined the history above, and redirected the discharge line away from beneath the bedroom and for some reason out to the front of the house right by the front door, where it's ugly a.f.  He replaced the two busted pressure valves and the house is already noticeably more comfortable.  But he told me that there's massive mold buildup beneath the bedroom, that the wood down there has been severely damaged by the water, and by the way, did I notice that my floorboards are warped?  

To add injury to insult, his bill was $850, and I've got another $400-plus water bill still coming my way (I checked on line), plus whatever the mold abatement, foundation repairs, and floorboard replacement are going to cost.

I blame Trump for all this because why not?  This sort of thing never happened to me when Obama was president.