5.15.2018

May 15, 2018

White Dog mumbled, "You are about to jump to conclusions."

All of a sudden ALL of the White Dog Army was crowded into the office with us, sort of uneasy. I looked around the room and wondered.

THEN I glanced down the hallway. The wooden floor was a lake of wetness with pools in several spots. White Dog was right. "What the HECK," I demanded, "is going on? Really?" I was just working up to a stern momma lecture about house manners and stupid games when WD theatrically gazed down the hall, looked pointedly UP, and then down again.

"OMD!" I cried, "the CEILING is leaking. And in two places and at a pretty good drip rate. What the..."

Anything involving UP and leaking this time of year, especially when it is dry and sunny, means issues with the Swamp Cooler...which means roof. I went out to the kitchen and turned the thing off. Then I called Steve.

It was a come home NOW call despite the meeting he was in. I got out the mop but the water was too much for me to handle without fear of slipping; meantime the WDA and I sat in the office watching the dripping and praying the problem was easily fixed...without lots of plaster work.

Steve rushed through the door and immediately (in work clothes) went out and up. The Army followed explaining what they knew of the situation and complaining the wetness impeded their normal traffic patterns.

He came back in and announced that the fix, at least stopping the leak, was an easy one. The "spider" element of the evaporative cooler that sprays water through multiple legs to wet the cooling pads had become disconnected from the line that brings water to the roof. The water was just pouring into the fan and then into the house vents. Shutting the water off stopped the flow.

But of course the water had soaked the ducts and dripped through where they joined.

"Thank goodness our dog treats come in those handy buckets," WD said as she helped Steve engineer a solution. Steve's immediate fix was low-tech: buckets under the two areas dropping water. Everything would need to dry out. The WDA were intrigued by these new stations being set up in the hallway. Each had to sniff, wag at the cookie smell, put a nose inside the bucket, and pull back at the realization that it was just water.

Steve had to give a group lesson on the obstacle course that now defined the hall. Not a single White Dog would pass the buckets and we feared that would create OTHER wetness problems in other parts of the house.

"You know, dull and uneventful is grossly underrated," I told Steve and the WDA. "Gotta get back to the meeting," Steve laughed. "I will stop on my way home and pick up a few things we might need and hopefully we can get all put back together before dark. Plan a late dinner."

The White Dog Army looked up at that...groaned...and shook paws at the Cosmic Lords of Jest.   

1 comment:

meowmeowmans said...

Wow, how scary that must have been! We are glad it's fixable, but sorry your normal routines got soaked like that.