April 14, 2011
Mystery Water
Our house has a finished basement. I work down there... or maybe I should say here since I am sitting in the room itself as I type this. The room (formerly a bedroom for the previous owner's son) has a bathroom attached - en suite if you watch House Hunters International - heh. The bathroom is an inside room, no walls against the outside of the house. One wall borders the walk in closet for the room, the other 2 walls border the unfinished part of the basement where the heater lives.
It's not a large room, toilet, sink with some good counter space, a shower (no tub), and a linen closet. There is a small rug in front of the sink area.
I mention the rug because the rug is the first problem I noticed.
I walked into the bathroom yesterday morning and the rug was laying at an angle in front of the toilet.
Odd.
I knew I hadn't moved it. I figured my husband had for some reason although I couldn't imagine why. I bent down to pick it up and it was soaking wet. Wet like someone had taken a pitcher of water and upended it on the rug. Of course I started looking around. There was no sign the water had overflowed the toilet. I looked under the sink. The floor of the cabinet was completely dry. I looked around the edges of the sink cabinet. No sign the water had come out from under the cabinet, the wood was dry.
Freaky.
That evening I told my husband what happened. He grabbed a flashlight and headed into the bathroom to look around. He saw no problem with the plumbing on the back of the toilet, no sign either that the sink was leaking. The walls all looked dry and unstained. Then he looked in the shower. It never occurred to me to look there since there's tray with about a 4 inch edge - how could water get from the shower to the floor? It didn't seem probable.
Wrong?
Or maybe not. There was a small puddle in the shower and the drain cover was askew... except we don't use that shower so where did the water come from? Why had the drain cover moved? Then he looked in the linen closet and found the entire floor wet. I never even thought to look in there.
The rag bag and a couple bags with old bed linens reside on the floor there. I pulled them out. Got rid of the dead bugs that had accumulated since I last cleaned it and got to work getting it washed and dried again. There's a drain clean out down there, but no sign of leaking around it.
In the meantime my husband checked the unfinished part of the basement. Along the wall, between the shower and the sink, water had leaked out of the bathroom.
But where did the water come from? How did it get there? It had to have happened over night. My husband suspects somehow water backed up into the shower due to a clog which eventually gave way. He looked closer at the shower drain. It's very possible the drain around the shower leaks. Since we don't use that shower, we'd never know it.
I suspect our water treatment system did it's weekly back wash, which it does about once a week in the middle of the night, and that's where the water came from. It backed up into the shower tray and leaked around the drain, soaking the floor. I might be wrong about that, but it's a theory.
Still... not being 100% sure, it's very unsettling. We've had many past experiences with water in basements - none of them good. Because we aren't sure what is going on, we will await events. If it happens again we'll have to bring in a plumber.
I'm not optimistic.
It's not a large room, toilet, sink with some good counter space, a shower (no tub), and a linen closet. There is a small rug in front of the sink area.
I mention the rug because the rug is the first problem I noticed.
I walked into the bathroom yesterday morning and the rug was laying at an angle in front of the toilet.
Odd.
I knew I hadn't moved it. I figured my husband had for some reason although I couldn't imagine why. I bent down to pick it up and it was soaking wet. Wet like someone had taken a pitcher of water and upended it on the rug. Of course I started looking around. There was no sign the water had overflowed the toilet. I looked under the sink. The floor of the cabinet was completely dry. I looked around the edges of the sink cabinet. No sign the water had come out from under the cabinet, the wood was dry.
Freaky.
That evening I told my husband what happened. He grabbed a flashlight and headed into the bathroom to look around. He saw no problem with the plumbing on the back of the toilet, no sign either that the sink was leaking. The walls all looked dry and unstained. Then he looked in the shower. It never occurred to me to look there since there's tray with about a 4 inch edge - how could water get from the shower to the floor? It didn't seem probable.
Wrong?
Or maybe not. There was a small puddle in the shower and the drain cover was askew... except we don't use that shower so where did the water come from? Why had the drain cover moved? Then he looked in the linen closet and found the entire floor wet. I never even thought to look in there.
The rag bag and a couple bags with old bed linens reside on the floor there. I pulled them out. Got rid of the dead bugs that had accumulated since I last cleaned it and got to work getting it washed and dried again. There's a drain clean out down there, but no sign of leaking around it.
In the meantime my husband checked the unfinished part of the basement. Along the wall, between the shower and the sink, water had leaked out of the bathroom.
But where did the water come from? How did it get there? It had to have happened over night. My husband suspects somehow water backed up into the shower due to a clog which eventually gave way. He looked closer at the shower drain. It's very possible the drain around the shower leaks. Since we don't use that shower, we'd never know it.
I suspect our water treatment system did it's weekly back wash, which it does about once a week in the middle of the night, and that's where the water came from. It backed up into the shower tray and leaked around the drain, soaking the floor. I might be wrong about that, but it's a theory.
Still... not being 100% sure, it's very unsettling. We've had many past experiences with water in basements - none of them good. Because we aren't sure what is going on, we will await events. If it happens again we'll have to bring in a plumber.
I'm not optimistic.
Posted by: Teresa in
Ummmmm
at
11:23 PM
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Posted by: Jack at April 15, 2011 10:21 AM (VpPTf)
2
Ha! Yes he would say that. So far no new mystery water... stay tuned.
Posted by: Teresa at April 15, 2011 03:20 PM (xE2iU)
3
How very odd. Hope you find the cause, because that's the sort of thing that can keep one awake at night... or maybe just me... 
Posted by: pam at April 15, 2011 04:05 PM (i3Kno)
4
LOL - the threat of water anywhere in the house really does keep us awake at night. We've already had a house that flooded twice so it's not something we disregard. OTOH so far so good... we'll just hope now.
Posted by: Teresa at April 15, 2011 09:15 PM (xE2iU)
5
I've gone through the mystery water before...gotta find the source. Easier said than done.
Posted by: Yabu at April 18, 2011 08:33 AM (RDdNW)
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