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My first flood...

M

mantis32

On Mother's Day...in the middle of filling my 5gal bucket of RO/DI water, I leave my second floor condo to head to the office for some off-hours network maintenance leaving the slow trickle at the hands of my girlfriend. Many hours later, I get home with just enough time to throw some clothes on and head out the door to hopefully be on time for our dinner reservation. She informs me as I hurry in the door that she shut off the feed valve under the sink b/c she couldn't lift the bucket without spilling water. I say 'okay' and figure I'll continue later.

Somehow the idea of her shutting it off, left my head. It must have been seeing the bucket with water in it. So, in my haste I quickly felt under the sink and turned the lever to what I thought was off not knowing I just switched it to on.

A little over 5 hours later...We all get home to an overflowing bucket of water. To my suprise the floor is relatively dry except for the splash around the bucket. Seconds later I hear my downstairs neighbor close his door and it all pieces together...

Hardwood floors are great when there is no space between the wood for water to easily ruin your neighbors kitchen. His whole kitchen ceiling is damaged, his lights won't turn on, and his whole kitchen floor was where the puddle went. I knew he would be dealing with water for the rest of the night as he said it only started to pour 30minutes ago.

I'm sure it's going to turn out to be one expensive RO/DI unit.
 
M

mott768

Sorry to hear and Welcome to the flood club, just about all of us have had some sort of flood, I was told I wasn't a true reefer until I had at least one. After my third flood I finally put a float switch on my container (mine is in the basement, to avoid future floods you can put the bucket in the sink or bath tub this way if it overflows it wont ruin your floors or your neighbors ceiling. Hope the damage isn't to bad, good luck
 
Phyl

Phyl

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
OMG! That's awful. We used to sit our buckets in the sink to fill them so that the overflow (which seemed inevitable) ended up down the drain.

Then we got smart and used a Kent float valve. Good luck.
 
B

Brian

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
Sorry to hear that! and again...Welcome to the flood club! We've all been there (some more than others)

Hopefully your insurance can cover everything @ your neighbors.
 
JohnS_323

JohnS_323

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
Phyl said:
Brian used to be the president of the Flood Club!
Click to expand...

When did he lose the title? I must have missed the election!

Like everyone else said, welcome to the club. I've flooded my Millipede machine, my kitchen, and the area under my sump a number of times. Every time it happens just out right sucks. If you can, try to fill your bucket in a sink or something. If the feed line isn't long enough, you can buy PE tube and John Guest coupling fittings at HD/Lowes to extend it. For the $5 in parts, it's great peace of mind.
 
B

Brian

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
I may still be President of the flood club...but I haven't had a...flood..umm...I'm just going to quit while I'm ahead.
 
C

Carlo

About 6 months ago I made a quick adjustment to my skimmer while running out the door at my 3rd floor apartment. A few hours later I come home to a note on my door. :) While adjusting my skimmer, I hit the tube coming from a phosban reactor and knocked it out of the sump. I got my downstairs neighbor and his downstairs neighbor.

Insurance is a good thing to have in times like those!

Carlo
 
GregW

GregW

I'm in that club also but fortunately for me my tank is in my basement. Ace Hardware stores sell a battery operated flood alarm for about $15. It wouldn't have helped you much in this instance since you weren't there. It has a very load alarm - I can hear it going off in my basement from my bedroom on the second floor.
 
Phyl

Phyl

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
We have one of those alarms Greg mentioned. It has been a tank saver for sure! They are very sensitive and will pick up the most minute amount of water. We had a slllloooooooooooow leak from a bulkhead fitting under our tank (had magically come a little loose?!) and with just a couple of drips of water there it was SCREAMING for our attention.
 
M

mantis32

I hope that this is my first and my last toll for the flood club.

Yeah I really hope my insurance will cover it. Waiting on a call back. Lowes for longer tube, flood alarm, kent float valve, and auto shut off pieces will be worthy investments moving forward. Oh and even with all that, bucket in the sink from now on.

Does the ro/di feed water valve always have to be off when not using the ro/di unit? It's a pain to remove everything from under the sink, grab a flashlight and look for the valve lever.

-
And to damage not only your neighbors floor but the floor below him, that's bad...
 
Phyl

Phyl

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
When you're buying parts, buy a shutoff for the END of that PE tube. Use THAT to turn the RO/DI on and off.
 
C

Carlo

Thanks. I gotta pick one of those up. My flood alarm needs about a 1/16"-1/8" of water before it sounds which stinks.

Does this unit beep or give any indication when the batter is getting low?

Thanks,
Carlo
 
GregW

GregW

I haven't had mine long enough to know about the low battery warning but mine gets tested once a week when I do water changes. I hang the sensor about an inch above the top of the container so the alarm goes off when the RO/DI water reaches it.
 
M

mantis32

Phyl said:
When you're buying parts, buy a shutoff for the END of that PE tube. Use THAT to turn the RO/DI on and off.
Click to expand...

I do have a shutoff for the end of the tube as it came with one, but in the manual it said if you're not going to use your ro/di to shut it off at the source and not just the end of the tube.


I also just bought that alarm from Lowes, for $12.47. Going to go nutz and put one in the bathroom, laundry room, and under the sink. Too bad it doesn't seem like it would detect a wet carpet.
 
Phyl

Phyl

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
At the source? Oh no. We never shut it off there. But then our RO/DI runs daily, if not more often.
 
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