My house is hydrophilic

Getting ready to dash to work, I stopped short to answer the little voice inside my head.

“Perhaps I ought to give the house a once-over,” I thought. Areas of New Jersey were under a flood advisory given the relentless build-an-arc rain we had all day Wednesday and Thursday and into this morning.

Good thing I did—I found four leaks. Two in the new downstairs bathroom and one in each corner of the great room bump out, right and left of the temporary sliding glass doors.

As so yet again, I was snapping photos with my iPhone and sending them to my contractors.

This was not our first “rain coming into the house” experience. And it was not our second experience, either. In fact, keeping rain from penetrating our home was the main driver for this renovation project.

“This frakin’ house is hydrophilic,” I muttered to myself while driving to work with a stress-induced stomach ache.

Alex sent me an e-mail that said, “I had Joe diagnose the problem and he found the water was coming in from your bedroom. This morning he’s pitching the deck board away and sealing the underside. Don’t be alarmed or nervous your home will be water tight when we are done with it.”

Now I need another torrential downpour to test whether they solved the problem… Gutters will be nice, too.

Epilogue: Be careful what you wish for

We found moisture in the ultility room under the interior stairs on Saturday morning. Granted, much of the neighborhood was pumping water out of their basements (and onto the road, where it froze).

This morning (December 16), after a night of rain, the left side of the bump out was again leaking, just not as extensively as before. One day, my home will be warm and dry.