Our very first...

Some people who are overly-sentimental (guess which category I fall in?) like to reminisce about their "very firsts". While some of these events are rightly justified, our very first house for example, others belong in a category which most would just like to forget. This weekend, Mr. B and I had our own "very first" event which we would prefer to forget:

Our very first frozen and ruptured pipe! 

You read that right. What a beat down. 

We came home from dinner on Saturday night and when brushing our teeth (always important to practice proper dental hygiene no matter the home emergency!) we noticed the tap was running really slow. And then it stopped. Never a good sign. 

We raced to the basement - and yes, I went down there - to have a look around the well pump. A small leak from the crawl space underneath the bathroom extension caught our eye. The bathroom on the ground floor was flooded. We still haven't figured out where the rupture happened and how the water went "up" into the bathroom, but who am I question?

Like true Generation-Yers, we immediately got on the computer to find an answer. And we called my dad. A few google searches later and with Papa H's good advice, the problem was temporarily solved.  Shut off the main water, but first do an additional search to figure out which darn switch to use, clean up the mess and call a plumber. Easier said than done at 1:00am on a Sunday morning. 

One of the advantages of living a few houses down from your plumber?  He'll come over first thing Sunday morning without thinking twice and without charging extra. Thank you very much! The bad news? Yes, the pipe is busted. The good news? It doesn't really matter. The bathroom is going to get a massive makeover anyway in a few weeks, so rather than repair what might need to be redone later, we just shut off the water to that bathroom. Keep the light on in the crawlspace to generate some heat, and you're good as gold.

I think it's safe to say we had a pretty narrow miss though. We were fortunate the flooding was contained and didn't cause major damage. Old man winter can be brutal.

Two things to take away from this event:

1.  In our searches, we came across a great website called justanswer.com. No, I am not being paid to endorse this site, but I will tell you, it certainly saved our tooshes this weekend.  Check it out for yourselves. It is legit and it's pretty useful for when you're in a jam.

2. Sham-wow is really sham-wow. My best friend has raved about it for a while, and I just picked up a box at Marshalls Home Goods a few weeks ago. One cloth cleaned up the entire mess. Very impressive.