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Well, that happened.

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Revenant

Entry posted by Revenant ·

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A number of months ago, when surprised, I just said, "Well, that happened," and Ben latched onto it and started using the phrase. Sometimes he would look to me when something happened and say, "Was that a thing that happened?" "Yup."

We live in Houston as most of you who read this know and apparently, from my coworkers, news of our misery the week of President's day has been a topic even in the UK and Europe.

Our water was in and out from Monday to about Thursday the 18th - but even when we got it back we were under a boil water notice until about the 22nd or 23rd (hard to remember now). We lost power around midnight on Tuesday the 16th. It was out for 22 hours. We got it back for 4 hours, lost it again, and didn't have it again. We brought the boys into our bed for warmth (and a miserable night for us) and bundled up under 4 or 5 layers to stay warm.

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Our ceiling caved in around 5 PM Tuesday. A pipe burst in two places. Shandy rushed in to try to poke holes and drain the water and was rewarded with sheetrock and insulation falling on her head.

Shortly before all that happened we'd been camping out in the back end of our fully gassed-up mini-van just to be in a warm place for a while - but we were smart enough to no do this with the car in the garage.

The pipe that burst was uninsulated copper pipe. With no insulation, no heat, and water cutting in and out I'm just not sure what we could have done to stop this.

One of the worst things about all of this is that we had a 9000 Watt generator and a 1500 Watt heater that could have kept us with heat in 1 room and some lights - we could have been a lot more comfortable, but we didn't buy enough gas to keep the generator running very long because we were not expecting it to be this bad. The warnings they gave before the storm were about lines coming down for a while - not power plants failing and day long blackouts. I'm not going to make that mistake again. Over the weekend we bought 4 more 5 gallon gas tanks and the next time this comes we're going to have enough gas to run the heaters, the refrigerator, the and the freezer (all that food ruined...) for 2-3 days straight. I've taken my lumps and I'm going to be better equipped next time.

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Shandy was crying... I came in, looked at this, and just laughed. Shandy didn't appreciate that much but it was just too ridiculous at that point.

We left the house early Wednesday to go somewhere warmer and dryer.

The landlady got a plumber out on Thursday of last week and I returned to supervise and to dry things out and clean up as best I could since we had power back at that point.

A clean-up company then came out on Saturday to rip out the ceiling and start working on drying out the ceiling / attic. There's still a massive hole in the roof but we've been back in the House since Saturday. We still have the biggest hole in the ceiling I think I've ever seen and the room is unusable as a result with plastic sheeting everywhere but we're doing better than many / most.

We've been working on our renter's insurance claim and had adjusters out. Nothing tooo terrible lost and we can replace all of it - mostly baby books and baby toys.

In slightly better news, we're working on wrapping up our taxes and things are looking good there. Some of that money is probably going to have to be used to offset the insurance deductible but I'm still hopeful I can talk my wife into letting me get away with something small, yellow, and shiny in a plastic housing. It might be a good time to do it with the dive Gold is taking this week.

No news on performance evals, raises or bonuses this year - I'm honestly not optimistic on that front for facilitating a shiny purchase but stranger things have happened and I'm mostly just grateful to continue to have a job after the 2020 many others had.

Barring a timely gold purchase the next "coin & currency" buy is going to be a currency / pseudo currency buy.

Speaking of Ben - he is increasingly showing interest in collections and collecting things, but the things he wants to collect are 1) Beyblades, 2) Bakugan and 3) [now] pokemon cards apparently. 

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coinsbygary

coinsbygary

Posted

I am sorry for your losses, but I am thankful that its all stuff that can be replaced. We had a cold snap of below zero nights for 11 straight days. However, this is Wisconsin and this kind of stuff happens every year. I have a number of other friends and relatives living in Texas that have managed the kind of week you had. I felt so sorry for everyone living in Texas that week. 

ColonialCoinsUK

ColonialCoinsUK

Posted

So sorry to hear what has happened, we have been following it on the news here in the UK.

A friend here was flooded out (we tend to get floods rather than burst pipes although we had -13oC/9oF a few weeks ago) and they had to move out for 6 months as it took that long to dry the place out - cool and damp here in the north of the UK so hopefully when the weather returns to normal it will not take that long in Texas!

My wife has decided that, as her parents now have solar and all the utilites bills have just gone up, moving our off-grid plans forward is now a good idea.xD

Revenant

Revenant

Posted

On 2/26/2021 at 5:55 PM, coinsbygary said:

I am sorry for your losses, but I am thankful that its all stuff that can be replaced. We had a cold snap of below zero nights for 11 straight days. However, this is Wisconsin and this kind of stuff happens every year. I have a number of other friends and relatives living in Texas that have managed the kind of week you had. I felt so sorry for everyone living in Texas that week. 

Thanks. We're getting through though. It has been stressful and I want my children to have their play area back but we've been very fortunate in it. We were the first ones on our street to pile up trash on the street for collection but we're getting plenty of company now as people get back in and get workers in to do the demo work. I think they're estimating the economic losses in Texas at 129 Billion or something else crazy.

2 hours ago, ColonialCoinsUK said:

A friend here was flooded out (we tend to get floods rather than burst pipes although we had -13oC/9oF a few weeks ago) and they had to move out for 6 months as it took that long to dry the place out - cool and damp here in the north of the UK so hopefully when the weather returns to normal it will not take that long in Texas!

My wife has decided that, as her parents now have solar and all the utilites bills have just gone up, moving our off-grid plans forward is now a good idea.xD

I think you all insulate your pipes and such much better than we do however. The pipes that burst were all uninsulated. We don't invest much into insulating pipes here because we almost never have hard freezes that last more than a few hours.

I honestly think the most hateful thing about all of this was having highs in the 70s (F) less than a week after it was in the teens!

We're taking our lessons and we'll be strengthening our preparedness - more portable heaters, a portable AC unit, more gas cans / gasoline storage capacity, siphon pumps for emergencies, emergency radio (with rechargeable battery, hand crank and mini solar panel for charging it). All of this coming after buying the generator this summer. We'll be much better prepared for the next hurricane season anyway.

coinsandmedals

coinsandmedals

Posted

Wow, I am sorry to hear you went through such a tough time. We were very fortunate here in Northern Mississippi, but I know many people temporarily lost power. The extent of the damage here was not even remotely close to what your area experienced. Hopefully they can get the work done quickly, and kiddos can have their play area back soon. 

Revenant

Revenant

Posted

1 hour ago, coinsandmedals said:

Hopefully they can get the work done quickly, and kiddos can have their play area back soon. 

Today marks 2 weeks hence and we still have a hole in the ceiling. Hoping they'll get back out and fix it soon but the insurance / adjuster is slowing things down. With the latest cold spell I'm not looking forward to the gas bill after having this hole in our insulation for so long but what can ya do? We're gonna be fine soon enough - just mildly inconvenienced in the long run. Thanks!

USAuPzlBxBob

USAuPzlBxBob

Posted

I'm a homeowner, and in the last three months I've learned that my house has an inherent roof leak when the wind and rain are blowing from the south.

Otherwise, no leak!

Have been living here for twenty years, and have had the roof replaced twice in this time.  Yet no one knew.

Weeks of experiment and deduction this past summer — and a test with a garden hose — finally obviated what needs to be done.

Hoping to have the work undertaken in early September 2023… next week.  Just a few thousand $$.

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