It is important to listen to your house. I’m thinking about the cowboys from the wild west thinking something might be coming, and putting their ear to the ground. Those folks knew what the world should sound like, and when something changed… something that could shoot or eat them, they tuned themselves into that change, and made sure they understood what had changed, and what it meant to them. I am pretty good at this. I’m not aware I do it, but when sounds come and go in the house, I accept the data and categorize it. And I share this household with someone that is far better at this than I am. I’d compare our abilities to that of a human’s sense of smell vs a German Shepherd’s. Today was a case in point.
I was in my recliner winding down for an afternoon nap when Alice walked in and asked why the house suddenly smells like dirt. The only answer I could come up with was, maybe I carried in some earthy smelling firewood. Having solved that problem, I renewed my concentration to the game of spider solitaire I was playing. (Alice has been known to have a few false alarms).
A few minutes later, she yelled, “You need to come down to the basement; bring boots”. Knowing me as she does, a practitioner of ADHD, she almost never yells out for me. I have a difficult time untangling my attention from a task I’m involved with, and surfacing to deal with the interruption. Our rule being, yell out for me if the house is on fire. It is a gray area I agree, since the house was technically not burning, but in this case, she did just the right thing.
We have 2 basements in our house; a “Michigan basement” under the old part of the house, and a full basement under the addition we built 30 years ago. Our Michigan basement has a 44″ crawl space with a dirt floor. This was the place Alice was looking, and she was right… I needed boots. Water was shooting into the air, soaking the insulation in the ceiling of the basement, and puddling on the floor. We live in clay country, so the water was not soaking in, but instead creeping and pooling up in all the low spots in the basement.
I ran to the full basement and turned off the main water valve. The fountain slowed to a trickle. This was a good start on solving the problem. My thoughts turned to the situation last week when our sewer backed up, and, being the positive thinker I seem to be, thought to myself, “At least this isn’t sewage.”
Being 6’2″ tall, makes it harder than most when it comes to navigating a Michigan basement with a muddy clay floor. I had to make my way to where I figured the leak would be, and asked Alice to stand by on the main water valve in case I needed to have the water turned back on to find the leak. Once I made my way to the source of the shower, I was able to find the culprit without the assistance of the water being on.
A check valve that was attached to the hot water heater had ruptured, and had been joyously spraying water all over the basement for as many minutes as it took for Alice to notice it. I do pride myself in the tools and materials I’ve accumulated over the years. Living 18 miles from the nearest hardware store means we need to be somewhat self sufficient for tools and materials. One thing I did not have sitting around the house, however, was a 3/4″ brass check valve.
With the water turned off, I slogged through the snow to the outbuilding where I store the garden hose, and grabbed a 50′ section of the hose. This I connected to the drain on the hot water heater, and opened the drain valve. I knew I’d need to drain the system in order to make this repair. Crawling to the other end of the hose exposed the truth… some water must have been left in the hose when I put it away, and due to a clog of ice in the hose, no water was moving out of the system and into the drain.
Thinking that there was nothing more I could do about this, I left the hose connected and the valve open, and jumped in the pickup and headed into town. This being Saturday afternoon, my options were limited to the one hardware that was open. As I was driving to town, I figured if they didn’t have what I needed, I’d have to drive to Menards in Marquette, about 90 miles one way.
The hardware was open, I walked inside (still pretty caked with mud) and looked for a replacement check valve. Like most guys I know, I didn’t ask for help. I spent about 20 minutes looking for check valves in all the places (except one) they were likely to be. I finally asked the young clerk if he could help me. I could tell that check valves had not firmly entered his lexicon, but he gamely looked for them in many of the same places I’d already looked. Then he went around the corner and located the check valves used in sump pumps. This kind of check valve was too large and not robust enough for my application, but as he walked away, I noticed some boxes one shelf down that contained just what I needed. Armed with the part, I drove home and rested a bit.
For some reason, I was not enthused about going back into the muck pit to fix the leak. After I was unable to stall any longer, I donned my boots, grabbed the tools and the new valve, and went into battle. All sorts of things could have gone wrong in this repair, but this time, the old part came out with a minimum of hassle, the new one (see the shiny part just above the ball valve in the picture) threaded in just like it was supposed to. Check valves only work correctly in one direction, and I even got the direction right. When Alice turned the water back on, I stationed myself next to the repair to look for leaks. None appeared. Then the work of heating the water back up transpired. And, since the water was back on, we could flush the toilet again.
We all have our skills, and, if we’re lucky, skill sets complement each other. Who knows how much water would have intruded into the Michigan basement if Alice hadn’t noticed? Thanks to her German Shepherd nose, the problem was discovered, and eventually repaired. I still think I’m owed a nap, however.
Yes, it does seem like all the residents in our community have gained skills we never would have known that we might need someday. Tis a remarkable story indeed,Ted. Neighbor Marj
Comment by Marj — February 16, 2025 @ 12:29 pm