My Basement Leak III

 Well, it's been a little over a month since the last installment and a lot has happened.

First off, none of the stuff in the basement appeared to be damaged so that's good. 

Second, they did manage to finish the spackling and they replaced the baseboard heating covers.

Third, we went through the stuff from the closet and found some really weird things. There were several bags of stuff from when my wife cleared out my mother-in-law's apartment including an entire bag of empty prescription bottles. Why they were kept is anyone's guess but they're now gone.

Another bag contained old LP records. I was treated that night to a selection of Yiddish Folk Songs by Theodore Bikel followed by Johnny Mathis as my wife couldn't resist trying some of them out.

I called Valentine Electric to come down and add a socket so I could hide the sump pump electrical connection and ran into a couple of code issues. They couldn't do exactly what I asked and recommended a dedicated line rather than adding a socket. This ended up giving me a small pipe running down from the ceiling in the corner of the fireplace.

My wife hated it. But there's a limit to what you can do. It did get the electrical out of the way. 

We then headed to Home Depot to pick out the chair railing and got a lead on someone that might do a cabinet. I took a picture of the chair railing that we wanted, the contractors picked it up the next day and installed it.

That brought us to the question of painting. The original estimate of $800 sounded more than a tad outrageous but apparently there was some confusion over the scope. We got an informal quote of $300 but that was before the baseboard heating covers had been installed.

We went back to Home Depot to pick out paint. My wife had a general idea of what she wanted but neither of us had expected an entire wall of closely related colors.

It took a while to pick out two colors, one for the wall, or actually half a wall, and the other for the chair railing. We went up to the lady at the counter with our selections, she nodded, then looked at us and asked "what finish?"

What? There were apparently a half a dozen different finishes that each paint came in ranging from gloss to flat. After some consulting with the paint lady, we chose flat for the wall, satin for the chair railing and walked out with a gallon of paint for the wall and a quart for the railing.

We then proceeded to dance a scheduling dance with the contractor for the painting and I started to wonder about the fact that the baseboard heating covers would have to be removed and replaced.

In the meantime a woman from Home Depot arrived to look at putting a cabinet over the sump pump and it became pretty obvious, pretty quickly, that this was way beyond what they usually do. She gave us a sort of "not possible" response and I realized I would need someone a bit more creative.

It was now the first week in December and the task list included get the painting, done and get someone else to look at putting a cabinet in to hide the sump pump.

I finally figured out that since they had been paid for the major part of the job the water proofing contractors had bigger fish to fry and weren't really interested in my little paint job. So a called a few places that did handyman work and painting.

I found a painter that offered to do the job for $500 and set up an appointment for December 18th. There were four parts to the job. (1) remove the baseboard heating covers, (2) paint the wall, (3) paint the chair railing, (4) reinstall the baseboard heating covers and (5) reinstall the electric socket covers which were still off.

We then went looking for flooring. My wife decided on flooring rather than carpeting and we went to the local flooring place. They measured, said the sump pump would not be a problem as they would cut around it, and suggested carpeting for the small flight of stairs.

They sent us what seemed like a reasonable quote, we gave them a $1,000 deposit and they said they would contact us in 4-5 weeks to set up the installation. One gotcha is that the baseboard will be primed white and we're going to have to figure out if we want them painted. I'll worry about that later.

We also located a carpenter in town that came and looked at the sump pump corner and said that he would figure something out.

That night, I noticed the thermostat downstairs, in the same room, was signaling that the batteries needed to be replaced. So I replaced the batteries and the thermostat went blank. The puppy was completely dead. I tried different batteries. I tried taking them in and out and pushing on them but no joy. I flipped out and finally called Gold Medal for help. 

When the technician got there, he looked at the thing sideways, scratched his head and said maybe it needed to be reset. I didn't know the thing had a reset button. He reached into his bag and grabbed the thinnest, pointiest thing he could find and depressed this teeny, tiny little button on the side. Voila! The thermostat came back to life.

But the thermostat wasn't the important thing. The important thing was on his way out he noticed a wet spot, in the corner, under the baseboard heating. This was no where near the original leak. He checked it and said the pipe might be leaking and I should keep an eye on it.

The painters actually contacted us and asked if they could come on the 17th instead. I said fine and they showed up bright and early. They painted the walls and the trim but didn't remove the baseboard heating covers or replace the socket covers. They claimed they didn't know how to remove the covers. Another example of the guy setting up the job and the guy who was actually going to do it not being on the same page.

After some discussion, and inspection, we decided the hell with the baseboard heating covers but they would replace the socket covers. That's when we discovered we were missing a screw. They left the cover loose and I got some screws and took care of that later.

In the meantime, since a full month had passed, I figured I should give the Old Basement Guys a call. I called on December 15th, and spoke to the owner. He said that he thought that had been taken care of and that he would check and get back to me.

He didn't get back to me so I called again on December 17th. They said they would pass the message on and the owner would call us back. He actually did. This time my wife answered the phone and he assured her that "the check was in the mail."

It's now December 18th and the carpenter showed up and did his thing. We had also negotiated painting the cabinet and he suggested we paint the top to match the chair rail and the base to match the wall. That sounded reasonable so that's what we did.

After it was done, I have to admit that it looked pretty good. I suppose it should for $1,211.

Remember that possible leak under the baseboard heating? After a couple of days of thinking it must have been condensation the wet area clearly began to spread. I called Gold Medal again. They sent someone that Friday, December 19th. He said yup, the pipe is leaking but he fixed it in about an hour.

Then on Saturday, December 20th, a check from the Old Basement Guys arrived. I immediately deposited it but of course it hasn't cleared yet.

<<To Be Continued>>