April is turning out to be expensive!

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-05-2004
April is turning out to be expensive!
4
Tue, 04-11-2006 - 12:27am

I knew April would be a 'little' pricey due to a karate tournament we are attending (hotel costs, gas costs (700 miles each way), food there, registration costs, etc etc, but now other things are popping out of nowhere to surprise us--and our budget.

This morning, I opened my garage door and I saw a trail of ants coming into my house. So I thought, "It's Springtime....I'll just get something to get rid of the ants before they get into the main living area of the house", and I wasn't too bummed. Until--I looked up to see if they might be crawling on the walls of the garage, and I saw three large water spots on the ceiling of my garage! Our kitchen is right above the garage, so I knew that's where the leak had come from.

I ran upstiars, and pulled my fridge away from the wall (no easy task), and I saw that the fill tube for the ice maker had come dislodged from the back of the fridge and was leaking water all over the floor and soaking down into the garage. After working on the problem for several hours (you can tell I'm not a repairman ;-D), I've figured out it's not the pump and not the icemaker itself, but it looks like water might be frozen in the fill line. So tomorrow I need to fix that, and hopefully not have to call an expensive repair guy, fix the drywall damage in the garage, repatch that and repaint, treat the upstairs walls to prevent mold/mildew, and repaint there also.

Just a majorly expensive month...and it's not even halfway finished yet. I called my Mom, and she laughed and said, "Isn't it fun being a homeowner?" LOL! :-D

I'm crossing my fingers that May is less expensive for me. :-D

Pat :-D

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-12-2004
Tue, 04-11-2006 - 1:44am
Hi, Pat--Oh, my word! Am glad you found the source, before paint peels, mildew sets in, etc. At least the ants arent marching in the shower! Were you able to salvage anything? Whiz.
iVillage Member
Registered: 12-05-2004
Tue, 04-11-2006 - 6:58am

I checked the drywall downstairs in the garage this morning, and it looks like it's ok. I don't think it'll need to be replaced, thank goodness. I still need to let it dry, though, before I can put on any sort of mildew/mold protectant and repaint. In the meantime, I'm just about to move all my frozen food downstairs to my other stand-alone freezer, so I can try to thaw out the icemaker intake tube. If this works, I won't need to pay a repair person. :-D That'll save a lot of money. :-D I need to be 100% sure this problem is fixed before we go away for Easter weekend. I don't want to come home to a flood. LOL! :-D I might just raise the icemaker arm when I go to avoid having the icemaker run while I'm gone.

Off to work I go! :-D

Pat, the fix-it gal! :-D

Avatar for cl_phocid
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Tue, 04-11-2006 - 10:40am
Pat - you pulled the fridge away from the wall?

All my best,
Danni

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-05-2004
Wed, 04-12-2006 - 11:07am

Thanks Danni! :-D It actually took me two full days of working on it, but last night at around 8pm, I reinstalled my icemaker, and it filled! I turned it off last night so I could sleep without having to worry about it, but I turned it back on this morning, and it's run through about five cycles without any troubles at all. Wahooo!!! Just think of the money saved by doing it myself. I'm thrilled! :-D So today, I'm going to concentrate on repairing the garage ceiling. Looks like I'll have some great weather to do it. :-D

Pat :-D