J Miller

Several weeks ago, August 28 we had a rain here that flooded our basement. We had over 18" of water in certain places.

All of the sewing machines were off the floor on shelves or tables but two Singers, a 66-18 and a 518 were in use and ended up with wet controllers. I got the 66 controller opened up and inspected, it dried out OK and is good to go. I still haven't gotten to the 518 controller.

My test treadle was 8" deep in water, so it went outside the next day and was hosed with WD-40. Hopefully that took care of the wetness and potential of rust. I'll have to check it again soon. It's out in the garage now.

Due to the sheer amount of things in our basement we haven't gotten to everything that was on or near the floor. There is still a bunch of water under tubs and buckets that haven't dried out yet. We've not been able to force ourselves to get it all moved and inspected. More emotional rebellion than anything else I think, although the odor is getting to us.
My wife has lost a bunch of sewing books with patterns and some other things, but we haven't been hurt too bad, yet.

One machine, my Kenmore 120-491

was on a shelf 4" above the floor. I just found it tonight. The case was soaked on the bottom, the machine base was also wet but not far enough up to get to the machine. The manual and needles were in a zip lock bag and didn't get wet. The accessories didn't get directly wet but are now covered in mold as is the inside of the case.
The case is still semi-wet and will go outside in the sun tomorrow. Then a bath in bleach water and or vinegar to try and kill the mold.

The moral to this story is if you have so much stuff that you can't see it all, that there are three layers of it, you've got too damn much and you need to get rid of it. No matter how bad it hurts.

Anybody in central IL want to give us a hand? <- Seriously. If you can or want to PM me.

Joe / Elaine

Rodney

I know you mentioned the basement got flooded before. Sorry for all the damage.
Rodney

Cari-in-Oly

OMG Joe, I'm so sorry. Not helpful I know. If I was close enough I'd be there. Been there, done that. The only thing worse is a fire. Done that too. Is that one of the Chrysler/New Process machines? That's just a terrible thing to have happen.
Your wife must be heartsick over her books and such. I know there are patterns for just about anything on the web, but sometimes you just need to see or hold the book. I don't know what I could do from here to help either of you but if there is something please let me know.

Cari

bearisgray

Serious bummer. Cleanup is always stressful.

Candace

I'm so sorry to hear about this. When we lived back east, our basement flooded and ruined a bunch of irreplaceable photos with negatives, home movies etc. and many other priceless items. Sump pumps can only do so much. You're looking at it right, that if you have too much stuff to get to it's time to pare down. We all have too much and can think about doing the same. Hope you can get out of it mold free...

QuiltingVagabond

Joe, if your insurance covers flooding they would pay for cleanup. Let the pros come in to help.

liking quilting

Too much rain at once is never a good thing. Wishing you the best.

QuiltMom2

I'm sorry this has happened to you and your good wife and here's hoping things will be right again soon.

HelenAnn

So sorry you have to deal with this mess. Fans and dehumidifiers run them non stop. We had a water heater blow steam and hot water in a basement for about two weeks. (Lake house) the wood floors were curled so bad we thought we would have to replace them. Long story short air and dehumidifiers flattened them back down in a couple weeks.
good luck.

J Miller

Gradually cleaning everything out. Dehumidifier was flooded out too, but has been running since it dried out.

Have been running fans too, but sometimes their noise gets too much so we turned them off. This house is sooooo small you can hear everything from everywhere.

Joe