Saturday, October 31, 2009

When it rains, it pours-yet life goes on

I've had little more than an hour to digest the information, but I need to get this out so I can enjoy this day-not only for my sake, but the sake of my husband and for my children. The house we live in has issues. We already knew that, and have been dealing with things as they've happened. We've dealt w/ the wind blowing down our fence, to mold near our water heater, our pool equipment getting stolen, and now this. This takes the icing on the cake.

We have a leak-not just any leak-a leak in our hot water pipe that runs through the concrete slab under our house. I heared water running through the walls, and despite R's increasingly bad hearing, I knew I heard something yesterday, and could not figure out what it was. R kept telling me he couldn't hear anything wrong, but I couldn't rest. I went with my gut instinct-the survival instinct that has been kicked into overdrive as I am dealing with a husband whose sense of hearing is getting worse. I had Roto-Rooter come out this morning and confirm what I already had suspected (and had actually researched online last night). Based on how and where I heard the water, the result of turning off the main (and later just the hot water) off, that's what stopped the noise and we figured out what was wrong. We have a slab leak-one that will cost thousands to repair (even if we drill through the concrete to replace (really bandaid) the one pipe that's busted, or set up a new system through our attic (which is preferable, bypassing the old system before the other old pipes in the house bust too). This will actually require us to file a homeowner's claim-thank heavens I did not waste a claim with the stolen pool equipment, because this takes priority. We have the funds, we'll pay our deductible, and deal with whatever we have to file/pay for.

As for our pool, I'm going to talk to our pool man about draining our pool for the winter. Its obvious until we get settled with this leak, that all other repairs come second (including the pool equipment). R's upset-upset about his pay getting further cut, the pool equipment needing replacing, and his fading hearing. At the same time, we've already been doling out extra hugs w/ the kids and really trying to keep life in perspective. As my dad told me today, stuff like this happens, and we'll get past it. It does suck, but where my focus is on now, after I've processed this, is to enjoy Halloween with my kids-because it is fun for them. I have my health, we have our children-our three boys, who if I didn't have, we would be worse off. A broken house in the literal sense will not be the end of our lives, nor will it define who we are. We'll get past this, and learn from it. Now lets have some fun, its Halloween!

1 comment:

Melanie said...

I'm so sorry to hear about this newest calamtity to your house. My mom recently had a similar issue with her house, and she's still waiting for them to finish fixing her two bathrooms, and it's been five months now since the water leakage occured. Thank goodness for homeowners insurance for both you, and my mom. I hope that things get solved switftly with your water problems, and without too much out of pocket expense.