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September 20, 2005

I Spoke Too Soon

Yesterday I was on a roll. I swept the floors, I cleaned the kitty litter, I did a load of laundry; I even managed to whip the couch cover off the sofa before The Jeffrey's dog puke soaked through (a warning against feeding more than one Greenie at a time). Frinklin was on his way to the grocery store and I had grand spaghetti plans for dinner.

Then, I noticed it--a tiny little wet spot in the corner of the kitchen. Crap, I thought. The dog's water spilled and had soaked into the wall. I carefully felt the wall--wet where the baseboard should be (but isn't, as we have no baseboards in our kitchen for some reason).

I had a terrible thought. Did we check behind the dishwasher to make sure it wasn't leaking? How many times have we run the dishwasher? Just once? Twice? I ran for a screwdriver and quickly pulled the upper brackets off the dishwasher, exposing a pool of water that had formed over the last few days.

Not just dampness, but a POOL of water. Shit.

A panicked call to my Dad resulted in the following advice, "Soak up the water, set up fans, and pray for no mold."

After turning off the electricity to the dishwasher's outlet I called Frinklin home from the store and we disconnected the hoses, allowing us to pull the dishwasher all the way out from the wall. And then we surveyed the damage.
The floor is covered with linoleum, which protected it pretty well, however, the wall was soaked at the base. Fortunately, it was only wet at the bottom inch, not any further up. Because the drywall had been put in pretty badly originally, there are gaps at the base, and I could feel moisture under the wall. It appeared that the space under the cabinets was also wet. I mopped up everything I could and then set numerous fans in place to start the drying out process. I double-checked the other side of the wall, which has no moisture and the floor feels firm.

Just a few hours after the fans were in place, the wall felt dry to the touch. I couldn't see or feel any moisture where there initially was, however, I can see that under the sink cabinet it is still damp. The fans will remain in place for several days until we can't see/feel/sense/etc. any water. The dishwasher will hang out in the center of the kitchen for the time being. Inconvenient, yes, but we have no garage and the threat of rain is ever-present. Once the area appears dry and a couple of weeks have passed a plumber will be brought in to reinstall the dishwasher.

My coworkers today have been supportive, telling me their own stories of flooding their houses in creative ways and how they dried out without issue. I only hope that the fact that our house is old (and therefore drafty) and the weather has been relatively dry as of late will allow us to escape without having to tear out part of the wall.

My father-in-law feels terrible about the initial issues we had with the dishwasher, so I don't even know how to tell him about the soaked wall. Maybe we'll just keep that a secret for the time being. I don't blame him; I blame the idiot who originally put in the half-assed plumbing throughout the kitchen.

Maybe I'll play the lottery tomorrow and see if I can just move into a new house.

Posted by Ensie at September 20, 2005 06:41 PM

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Posted by: Violet at September 21, 2005 06:34 AM

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