A Flooding Adventure

Connie gets up about 3am this morning to go to the bathroom. She walks in the bathroom and I hear her say, "What's going on?". The bathroom light comes on. I hear her say something about water running. I get up and can hear what seems to be water. I'm guessing it's maybe the flapper in the toilet bowl not closing all the way meaning the water is continually trying to fill the tank.

Nope. As I walk over to the bathroom I see water all over the floor, extending out into the room this computer is in. WTF??? I enter the bathroom and ask if she knows where it's coming from. She doesn't know. The toilet looks ok so I figure- I hope- it's under the sink. If it's leaking from somewhere we can't get to we're screwed.  

I open the cabinet beneath the bathroom sink. Nothing at first as there so much stuff cluttering up the compartment. I drag a bunch of stuff out on the floor and there it is. The hot water line to the faucet failed and water is spraying out from what seems to be a small hole. 

Naturally, when I try to turn the shut off valve it's stuck. Connie suggests going outside and shutting off all the water to the house. I figure it will be quicker to try and get this one valve closed. I go get a pipe wrench and am able to break the valve free so I can close it. The water stops. 

Now we have to clean up the mess. Finally getting a look with all the lights on, the water went out of the bathroom, around the corner into the foyer, about eight feet past that and into the kitchen. It's kinda deep on one section of the kitchen but we caught it soon enough that only 2/3 or so of the floor had water on it. It's a small kitchen, too.

Connie grabbed some towels and started on the bathroom. I grabbed a bucket and the piece of crap mop we have. It proved to be worthless, mostly just pushing the water around. I remembered a bag of decent sized sponges in the washroom so got them and they soaked up quite a bit of water. That, and another towel seemed to work the best, although the towels were tough to wring all the water out of.

After maybe a half hour or so we had it pretty well cleaned up, so not as bad as it could have been. Good thing she got up to use the bathroom when she did. I'd gone to the bathroom an hour to an hour and a half earlier and everything seemed fine then. Just by coincidence she got up probably not too long after the water started flowing. 

It would have really sucked had neither of us woken up before I usually do at around 5:30. Or even worse, if it happens when we're out of town. That's what has me worried now.