Assessing the Damage, the Work Begins....

Reality of the work ahead on the damage to the floors and other areas of the "flood" began to take shape early yesterday.....

A Recap of the "Flood"_____

After getting home some 11 hours after we left for Sam's Graduation from The Ohio State University, we were "greeted" by the sound of rushing water as we entered the back door of our house.  A value, it appears, had popped off on the hot water tap under the kitchen sink....new taps and lines had been installed just 10 months ago, and for some reason,  one cut loose, resulting in a massive flood of water going into the kitchen and part of the living room area's hard wood floors.  What didn't settle into the wood beneath the kitchen and living room pine, flowed into the basement under 80% of the house, and a vast amount into the large crawl space under the kitchen. 

The kitchen and half bath on the south side of the old Church Parsonage, were added in 1945 at the tail end of the second World War....the parsonage was built by the First Church of God{at that time across the street to the northwest} in the winter of 1923 for the pastors of that church, which is now located on Fairground Road on the far north and west corner, some mile from us.  While the original house was complete with a full basement, the kitchen under was fitted with a large crawl space...big enough to maneuver in, and place pipes, insulation, and wiring in....much of the water ended up there, on the hard ground and in that pink insulation....which was bagged out in 30 sacks of wet mess in the first hours of cleanup.

Next step was trying to dry the hardwood floors out with the help of no less than 10 large turbine type "wind machines" in living room, kitchen, and basement...God knows what the electric bill will look like next month, after three days of those roaring 24/7?  As the wind and noise was{and still is} howling, the guys from Servpro Fire and Water Cleaning and Restoration began assessing the damage to the kitchen floor....57 years of 3 floors were removed from most of the area....it will need replaced in total.

While Nationwide Insurance will take care of the damage and repair work...Patricia and I will decide on a new kitchen floor type.  We had been thinking of this and other home improvements over the past few years....and while this mini disaster was neither welcomed or planned....it will indeed take us off the"talking" and onto the "doing".  I have a feeling that it is going to be a long summer....but it could have been much worse.  Say we had taken a 4 day trip to Wisconsin...or worse yet, a two week trip out west and Vegas, as we had talked about?  That would have taken the "mini" out of this disaster....

For now it will give me photos and material for the blog....all the while listening to the roar of the turbine wind machines in the back ground....which I expect to last at least 24 more hours if not longer....

back later, if I have my sanity....

Photos-Servpro was here within 2 hours from Lima to begin work, after our initial contact with our Nationwide Agent Beth Weber here in Celina....(2) The front(east) area of the kitchen with the original floor, circa 1945 (3)The machines trying to save the original hardwood floors in the main part of the house(old parsonage) which have been in place since it was built in 1923 and which we had restored in 2005(4) The water reached into the dining room to the west of the kitchen....this to, will be replaced(5) and the cat, for the first time in 13 years seems out of her element...first old Reagan her Airedale buddy dies, then 2 months later she in living in a noisy wind tunnel....looking at the suction hoses like "WTH"?