The Build: Week 22 – Keri's Blog

Wednesday, January 2nd – Tuesday, January 8th

Just when we think we’re gaining momentum and the end is in sight, we’re reminded that nothing really ever goes smoothly. This was definitely another low week.

The drywall crew continued their work by mudding seams and adding those neat little pieces of corner trim. We were honestly hoping to see more progress than we did but they weren’t onsite Friday or Monday. The heat is cranked so there’s really no reasonable excuse for them to not be moving forward.

Speaking of the heat, let me tell you a fun story, complete with pictures. As my one reader knows, when you live in Wisconsin you have a furnace that runs all winter long. When the furnace runs, condensation is released through a hose which is routed to a drain. The drain then takes the water away to the sewer or septic system.
When you’re building a new house and the plumbers haven’t yet finished making all the connections, you have a drain that doesn’t actually drain. What happens then? The water backs up and you have flooding. This is what happened to us.
We noticed earlier this past week that the basement floor was wet. We didn’t climb down the ladder to investigate and assumed someone spilled something and it was a non issue. WRONG. The water we saw was actually from the drain. The drain that had filled with water from the furnace was now backing up into the basement.
Seeing that the water had reached the framed walls and drywall we spent Sunday doing some cleanup. Cleanup we should not have been responsible for but as I’ve learned, no one is going to care as much about your house as you do. We got a squeegee and tried to get as much water as we could away from the walls. We also got a bucket to collet the water from the furnace instead of having it go down a drain that wasn’t functioning. We then emptied the worlds tiniest dehumidifier bucket so that it could continue chugging away. Luckily the pump for the sump pump works so we were able to dump water in that crock to have it removed up and out of the basement.
The pictures below were taken after a lot of the cleanup was started so it doesn’t look nearly as dire as it had when we arrived. I think the funniest thing, which is also not visible in the pictures, is the fact that someone ran a garden hose from the drain to the sump pump crock as though through some miracle of physics the water was going to flow up and over without the aid of a pump.
We of course emailed our expediter and were told:

its conman to get water in the basement when the sewer is not yet hooked up. the concrete is solid and no we don’t have to rebuild the walls, their is a dehumidifier that will be set up an dry out the basement. please dont worry, their is no problem . but yes it may look like a mess

Conman. I’ll tell you who the conman is…

We were moderately pleased with our squeegee work and rig job but were now left to maintain our bucket system until the plumber arrives. I did stop at the house first thing Monday morning and was greeted by a full water bucket and dehumidifier. I was however pleasantly surprised that most of the water, except for what is closest to the drain, had dried up. Fingers crossed the walls that got wet also dry up nicely.

Another item we noticed while we were rigging up our bucket system was on the exterior of the house. While we were checking out the tubing we installed for the sump pump we looked and noticed a considerable section of siding that was wavy. And in the word of Rick:

he sider was contacted forward the pitchures.
we will get that handle but not right away.
i have to talk to him about it. then he will fix the siding.

Bless your heart, Rick.

So all-in-all, not a great week. We were also expecting the well connection to be made on Monday which also didn’t happen. sigh