Bozzlife: Disaster Recovery Part 4
The recovery work on our basement after it flooded has been very slow going. It has now been close to a month since the disaster happened and we still are not able to use the downstairs of our house.
To be honest I think the state of the basement has been harder on Jovi than it has on us. She is used to going down there whenever she needs some alone time and just sitting in the dark and chilling out. I feel like the three of us have been on top of each other for the past month.
In addition to that, @mrsbozz and I have repeatedly talked about how our lives feel like they are in chaos because nothing is in its usual place. The garage is still full of stuff and we aren't able to park her car in there. Things we normally have quick access to are also boxed away in the garage until we can place them back where they belong.
It has been close to a week since any real improvement has been seen in the work they are doing. As you can see from the pictures, they finally have the drywall replaced where they had to cut it out to dry the wall and studs. They then had to mud and sand the seams in the drywall.
We were told by the project manager that the drywall mud was taking longer than they planned to dry. We think that might have been because it was so cold in our house. For a week or so after the flood we were afraid to use our furnace until it could be inspected. The furnace sits just next to the crock where the sump pump failed so it was covered in two to three inches of water.
We had planned on having the furnace inspected this year anyway, so the flood gave us even more reason. Additionally, the smell from the basement was so bad that we had to have the windows open in the upstairs. Fall in Michigan + no furnace + windows open in the house = a temperature of 63 degrees F in the upstairs.
Luckily, the heating and cooling company was able to fit us in their schedule and we have had heat for the past couple of weeks.
The carpenter was over on Thursday of last week to re-install all of the doors and framing that they had ripped off because it was warped from the water. Meanwhile, @mrsbozz and I had picked out the colors we wanted for the walls. They gave us the option of sticking with what we had or picking new colors. Since my wife likes to change things up every now and then she of course picked new colors!
Notice that step stool laying across the staircase? It was intended to keep Jovi from going down into the basement unattended, but it actually does very little to hinder her. She can jump right over it going up and down the stairs like a proper show dog!
I got an email from the project manager today that they are going to start painting and after that is finished they will put a pad back under the carpet and then thoroughly clean and deodorize it. I hope that is what we need to finally rid ourselves of the damp musty smell. It has definitely declined from the levels it was at, but it is still there as a subtle reminder of the damage that was done.
As part of the contract they are putting a coat of primer on the walls and then two coats of paint. I am not sure how long it will take for it to dry, but fingers crossed they will have all of that finished up by the weekend.
We are still waiting to for the heating and cooling company to come back and give us an estimate to have a higher grade sump pump installed as well as a back up pump in case something like this happens again.
This has seriously been a nightmare and I don't want to ever have to go through this again. The craft desk I made for @mrsbozz in the office has been damaged beyond repair so I will probably be doing a post in the future about building her a new one. Keep your eyes out for that!
You can check out past posts in this series here:
https://steemit.com/partiko/@bozz/disaster-recovery-d9jaxvfj
https://steemit.com/busy/@bozz/bozzlife-disaster-recovery-part-i
https://steemit.com/busy/@bozz/bozzlife-disaster-recovery-part-ii
https://steemit.com/busy/@bozz/bozzlife-disaster-recovery-part-iii
Sports Talk Social - @bozz.sports
Oh, man. That just stinks. Literally for sure.
The worst I saw in that vein was when a water pipe failed (at night, of course) at Gonzaga U's basketball gym in the early 90s. The company I worked for had some equipment on site that I had to go check. The entire gym floor had been covered in a couple inches of water. The company that handled the floor was out of Seattle, they had people on site in the first couple of hours after it was discovered. It took heroic measures, but they saved that floor. They drilled some strategic holes through the floor to the basement to get the water off as soon as possible.
Glad that you guys are getting back to 'normal'. For me, 65f is really cold!
Yes, we are pretty frugal with our heating and cooling, but 63 was getting a bit low even for us. There was a burst pipe at the MSU basketball facility a couple of years ago. I can't remember if I saw it on TV or if I was there for the game. It all blends together after a while! :)
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oh good grief dude... that is a massive project. Is everyone in the community affected in a similar manner? (manor? oh no! which one is the correct word?)
You had it right manner. Manor would be a house I think. No, everyone got the heavy rain, but it was really just bad luck for us that our sump pump decided to stop working. It is definitely more disruptive than I thought it was going to be. I probably could have done a lot of the work myself too, but since insurance is paying for most of it I figured why not just let them do it. Plus I hate sanding drywall!
Glad to see it well on the way to being completed. Did your sort out if everything was covered by the insurance company? My repairs from April have now been completed and I think they are too embarrassed to ask me to pay the excess as I wasn't happy with the response time.
No, the amount we were insured for doesn't even cover all of the work they have to do, so everything that we lost we are just out of luck with. It is unfortunate, but at least we are only looking at a $2000 bill instead of a $12000 one!
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Sorry to hear this saga is still going on, you must be looking forward when they come in to deodorize and then to get back to some form of normality
Haveing to have the windows o[ppne in the cooler temps must be frustrating and chilly
Yes, it has been quite the ordeal. They did start painting today so I am pretty excited about that. Hopefully by the end of next week or so we will be back to normal.
That soon thats good you and the dog will be glad about that for sure