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