Basement Floods

Last night I headed downstairs to knock out a small piece I’m writing for a book. I heard the sound of water flowing with a fair amount of speed. I was certain the bathtub was running, not an unusual event with a twenty month old running around, but I was still puzzled. How would Nathaniel get to the basement to turn the tub on? It was about then that I saw the source of the noise: Water flowing out of…wait for it…wait for it…the circuit breaker box.

I didn’t need all those years spent studying physics to tell me that water flowing out of a circuit breaker box is not something you should really mess with. On the other hand the basement was flooding and the flood was headed for the finished section. So now I have a decision: chance electrocution and possibly save the finished area of the basement or just be happy I have insurance.

I decided to go the electrocution route, what the hell. Ground fault interupts are there for a reason right? First I ran outside in the pouring rain to see if I could ascertain the source of the influx and staunch said flow. No luck, all I saw was the meter half full of liquid (still spinning by god) and spewing. Back to the basement.

At this point I had another decision: Grab a mop and hope I could soak the mess up (not really an option since the water was coming in much too fast) or grab the shop vac, make like Yahoo Serious, and suck. Plugged the shop vac in and tossed the nozzle (over the well meaning protests of my wife) into the rapidly expanding pool and flipped the switch. Suckage ensued.

I dumped the shop vac a dozen times before the water stopped pouring in, but the question remained where had the water come from? I had few clues: It was raining like hell (5 inches in 2 hours according some dubious reports) but that would only explain generalized noachaic flooding. I was interested in specific electrical breaking rainwater spewing type of flooding.

This morning it occured to me that the trunk line is run through conduit, three inch if I’m not mistaken, and conduit is basically pipe. If water were entering the conduit from a point higher than the breaker box then gravity would do the rest of the work. Went outside and looked at the transformer (crafty robots) and sure enough it is higher than my breaker box. Then I realized every transformer on the block is higher than the one in my yard. Apparently the tubs the things sit on were filling up from the deluge and the water was racing downhill until it found freedom by jetting out my breaker box.

The contractor came by and sealed the conduit but I’ll never get them out to repair the sheetrock….just one more project I suppose.