Leaks...

i went down into the basement today and noticed some water on the floor. apparently the east side of the house had a sprinkler every two feet, some of which were leaking, and with the rain sensor on the system not working over the last couple of days of rain there was enough water on the ground surface that it started seeping through the gap between the concrete sill and the window frame. it was clear that this had happened before. the problem was there was a built in place MDF cabinet in front of this leaky wall filled with shotgun shells and camp gear so no one had seen it happen. the only choice was to demo the cabinet in place and drag the soggy chunks out one at a time. so yusef and i donned N95s and taped a box fan to a furnace air filter and got to work in the hot humid basement. an hour and a half later we had a poker room full of sleeping pads, bags and tents, a pile ruined MFD in the alley, had chased away most of the wood lice and centipedes and shopvac-ed up most of the mess. erica got to go full smash room on the MDF with an axe after work and by the end of the day the wall, though looking bad, was starting to dry. the steps from here? besides fixing the sprinklers holes and turning off every other sprinkler head i don’t really know. i talked to a friend who is better at this stuff than i am and he though sealing the inside of the basement wall might trap water and cause it to rot so in the meantime we have replaced the MDF cabinet with wire storage racks so we can see what’s going on behind them and we will wait and see what happens…