Oooops.................................

Into every life some rain must fall.  Went down to the Old School this morning to unlock the front door for the drywall finishers and to check on a few things.   When empty, it is generally a very quiet building, but not this morning.  About halfway down the main corridor, I became aware of an unusual dull roar.  Uh-oh.   Following the sound to the former boiler room, I was greeted by about three feet of water on the lower level floor and several high pressure sprays of water.  The new 2" water meter was installed yesterday.  Sometime in the early morning hours, the gasket on the meter failed and water did what water does.  There is nothing wrong with the City of Newark's water pressure.

We were fortunate in many regards.  The electricians had hoped to energize the main electric panel on Thursday, but didn't because AEP wasn't ready yet.  We are about a week away from framing the lower level.   Neither of those improvements would benefit from getting soaked, and they would have.   Also, if the gasket had blown tonight, with no one scheduled to be in the building tomorrow, the flooding would have continued for hours more and spread out of the basement onto the main floor.  That would have made a serious mess.  We dodged a bullet.

Interesting conclusion:  The plumber showed up about 12 minutes after I called him.  Within a half hour he had a pump set up to drain the water out of the basement.  Within an hour, the fire department showed up.  One of our neighbors, seeing water gushing from the pump, called 911 and the fire department was dispatched.  It is comforting to know that people are paying attention.

Camera phone doesn't do justice to the water flow

It's supposed to be a living room, not a swimming pool

High water marks