Phil Must Pay For This

And by "this" I mean this:

Yesterday morning looked like early spring.  No snow, warm-ish temps.  Yesterday afternoon it began to snow.  The forecast was for 3 to 5 inches.  Then it was for 4 to 6.  The snow came down very fast, very thick, and in HUGE snowflakes.  At one point, I opened the front door to check on the snow and I could barely see across the yard to the cul-de-sac because of how thickly the snow was falling.

By all reports the roads became completely impassable and stayed that way.  This morning isn't much better, according to the news.

And that 4 to 6 inches?  Became 8 to 10.  The official tally is 8.4 inches; we smashed the record for this date that went back to 1929 and saw 3.0 inches of snowfall.  Out here in the 'burbs we're looking at somewhere around 9 or 10 inches.

Phil was not only wrong, he must have been hallucinating on LSD.

This morning I have to start digging us out and Scot can't help me.  I haven't mentioned this here but he had surgery last week on his wrist and he's still in a very large bandage.  He can't shovel snow.  What's more, his post-op follow up appointment is today and he can't miss it because he has to get that very large bandage removed.  I have to find a way to juggle the kids this morning so I can go out and dig out the driveway enough for him to get to his appointment.

The icing on this little pile of  cow chips is that Jamie had me up multiple times last night - the last of which was at 5:30 am.  I was never able to get back to sleep after that.  So, I'm tired, I'm cranky, I'm stuck in the house with two kids with cabin fever and a husband who is one-handed for the 5th day running.

Send me Phil's pelt.  I will fashion a hat from it that I will wear as a jaunty chapeau as I swill myself into insensibility.

UPDATE:  I measured while I was shoveling this morning.

8.5 inches of snow does not equal an early spring, Phil.  Not hardly.  I think you need a new job.

This Is What Two Feet of Snow in 24 Hours Will Do To You

Back in February I posted about the storm damage to our house from Snowmageddon. We finally got a chance to get an insurance adjuster out to the house to look at our damage and tell us how much they'd pay to fix it. Keep in mind that we, like almost every other homeowner, have a $1000 deductible on our policy.

I showed the nice hunky inspector the damage to the flooring in the front hall. He took pictures. He took measurements so that he could estimate replacing the ENTIRE floor - powder room, entrance, and hallway - even though we only have about 2 square feet of real damage.

I then showed him the two water damaged ceiling tiles in the game room from the water seeping in along the floor joist. Again, he took measurements so that the entire drop ceiling could be replaced. By this point I'm thinking that we've left that $1000 deductible in the dust.

Then I took him outside to show him the damage to the mortar on the brick holding up the front porch. Story time! Remember the Icicles of Doom? Well, because they spent so much time dripping on the porch - on top of the mountains of snow already there - we ended up with about 6 inches of solid ice on the porch. That ice made the front stairs and porch a serious hazard and nearly impassable. We had to dump about 150 pounds of salt on the damn porch and stairs to melt it down and make it safe. Did I mention that once we melted off the ice, we had a lot less problem with the damage to the floor in the front hall? So, that ice was a double pain in the butt.

Unfortunately the salt did a number on the mortar. It's crumbling away to sand.

I showed the inspector thinking that we'd be able to get something for this little issue since it was a direct result of the storm problem. Yeah, that was wishful thinking. He was apologetic about it but apparently homeowners insurance doesn't cover mortar, foundation, cracking, spalling, etc, etc. Or, at least ours doesn't cover it. I have no idea what it will cost to fix this little gem of an issue but I have to get it dealt with.

And then next winter, I am avoiding the cheap ass rock salt like it's one of the 10 plagues of Egypt. Calcium Chloride all the way!

Hunky Inspector Dude then grabbed a ladder and hopped up on the roof to make sure we didn't have damage up there (we don't, thank goodness) and then went to write up his estimate. In the end, after they subtracted that $1000 deductible, we got a little over half of what they estimated the total cost would be. Damn sight better than a sharp stick in the eye.

So, the next task is to find someone to deal with the mortar problems as they're more pressing than anything else. We can deal with the other stuff later.

I hated being a renter but when it comes to stuff like this, it would be so nice if it didn't always have to come out of my pocket. This is the part of owning a home that sucks. Just wait until I regale you with tales of The Great Retaining Wall Project of 2010.

File Under: Homeowner Woes

So, about those icicles?

Problems. Big, big problems.

Icicles like that are caused by ice dams. Ice dams mean water can't get to my gutters which in turn means that the water has to go someplace. Usually that means leakage into the house. We are not the only ones in the area experiencing this problem - not by miles - and we probably wouldn't have an issue at all but for the fact that we got 24 inches of snow in 24 hours. Plus an additional 12-15 inches over the course of the following 10 days.

Generally, this problem means water running down your walls. But I got lucky, yes I did. We have been gifted with the slow seep. It appears to be coming in from the front porch somewhere. It is being sucked into the plywood subflooring thus warping the subflooring. In turn it is transferring the damp and the warp to the one and only real hardwood floor we have in the house. We have several planks buckling at this point.

Added to this joy was discovering that two of the tiles in the drop ceiling in our basement game room are water damaged. I can't move one of them because there is a light in the middle of it but I moved the other tile and saw the damp subfloor and the wet floor joist for the foyer flooring by the front door. I watched the water come down the joist and drip, drip, drip, every few seconds.

So, I moved things out of the way and placed a bucket to catch all those little annoying droplets. Unfortunately, this is the only visible water I can actually find. The rest of it is just slowly seeping into the flooring and screwing things up.

We contacted our homeowners insurance and were assured that it is covered by the insurance. But, we've also been told that there is very, very little that can be done (read: nothing) before this all thaws out and dries out. Once that happens we can assess the damage and go from there. We get to sit around for the next several weeks and watch this problem cause more damage the longer it goes on. The most we can do is mitigate the water as much as possible - which isn't much considering the slow seepage problem.

Pardon me while I pause to have a panic attack...

It could certainly be worse. We've been told of other people who have kitchen ceilings literally falling down. We don't have that problem. Yet. But, I have to admit, this is the part of owning a home that I really hate.

Icicles of DOOM

These are the icicles that have formed over the last week since The Big Storm. There's no getting rid of them until spring. They're making my front steps so treacherous I don't want anyone on them. I just hope they don't impale anyone when they finally come down.

The row of icicles along the roof/gutter line has spawned its own little babies on the window sill below.

"Baby" icicles. Yeah. More like Honking Huge Teenager.

This massive accumulation has formed at the back corner of the house above the garage. God help the dog if she's standing around when it falls.

So, who's up for 4-8 more inches of snow over the next 36 hours? Yeah. Not me either.

For My Husband

Because he worked really, really hard on it and nearly crippled himself in the process, Scot asked me to post a couple of pictures of the apron in front of our garage. It's bigger than it seems and it's a total b-i-t-c-h to dig out even when there's not two feet of snow.

Taken while standing in the corner by the retaining wall with a lovely view into my side of the garage.

Taken from the point where the driveway begins to widen out into the apron - about where the sidewalk to the front door starts. That break in the retaining wall to the right is actually the stairs to the back patio but you can't actually use them right now.

Over the next 48 hours we're supposed to get another 6 to 12 inches. Now, I'm wondering if that will actually be 6 to 12 inches or another two feet. If it's another two feet we won't get out 'til spring. See you sometime in April.

2 Adults + 2 ft of Snow + 1 Shovel = 2 Days To Dig Out

This is what took us two days to dig out.

There are 5 ft. tall bushes under that snow. You can see some poking out but there are others that are completely covered.

This is what happens when the red leather gloves you're wearing get soaked through. 'Nuff said.

Snowmageddon Is Upon Us

Well. So much for accurate weather reporting. You would think that in a place that gets snow on a regular basis, they'd be better at figuring out how much we're going to get and how freaked out we all need to be. But, alas, no. Pittsburghers are truly deranged when it comes to snow. They're forecasting a dusting to half an inch? There's a run on bread, milk, and toilet paper down at the Giant Eagle.

For this particular storm, they were predicting 6 to 12 inches total - a major snowstorm for Pittsburgh. Everyone was stocking up on food and canceling travel plans. It started snowing in earnest around 3 pm yesterday afternoon and the driving conditions were deteriorating rapidly. It wasn't unpassable but the roads were getting slick and caution was warranted. I picked up Liam from school, came home, and settled in for the night knowing that we'd be housebound for the weekend.

I neglected to shovel any snow last night - even though all the neighbors were out doing it - because I trusted that we'd get no more than a foot of snow.

That was really dumb on my part. Truly idiotic.

I woke up this morning to not one foot of snow but two feet of snow and it was still coming down. We own one snow shovel. So far, I've spent two hours shoveling and managed to get a single shovel-width path down the driveway, up the front walk, and the stairs and porch cleared. The snow is up to my knees at least. The snow plows have plowed us in.

I took some pictures so I thought I'd share.

Liam enjoying the snow

This is part of the path that took me two hours to dig.

This is the retaining wall near our garage. The corner is about elbow height on me.

This is the main road that runs past our house.

Our mailbox, or what little of it remains uncovered.

The cossack hat our front light is wearing.

The pile of snow that I found when I opened the front door this morning.

Snow covered trees with treehouse.

Liam's playhouse on the back patio. You can barely see the door.