Official Luthiers Forum!

We had a big snowstorm here in the midwest which had my wife off work for 3 days (public schools canceled) - so today we decided to get some Christmas shopping done.

We left at 2:30 PM and got back home at 5:40.

The moment I walked in the door I knew something wasn't right. I heard a loud noise that sounded like rushing water - oh my gawd!

I checked the laundry room - and my wife ran downstairs.

A pipe had burst from the cold and we had water running everywhere - dripping from our basement ceiling.

I ran into our storage room to move things out of the way while my wife ran to the garage to get me some pliers so I could shut of the main water supply.

So - it is now 11:45 and I'm sitting down to unwind a bit.

Wow - what an evening.

The plumbers came.... the cleanup people came.

My office was torn apart. The carpet and pads were removed. Furniture was piled everywhere.

Damage was assessed.

I can't believe the timing! I work from home as a graphic designer and am here almost every day. BUT today - of all days... the pipe breaks while I'm gone.

What's with that????

Ok - so here's the GREAT news tempered with some losses.

The two guitars that I'm working on for customer builds are fine. There were hanging on the wall in an opposite corner of the room. One of them would have been ruined but I had moved it about 2 hours before we left to go on our shopping trip.

My stickered wood is fine - no water got to the stacks!

My computer and 3 external hard drives are FINE - Thank God! Literally! I shudder to think what would have happened had those drives been ruined. (Here's a reminder to all of you who live off your computers.... store a backup drive OFF SITE. I used to - but have gotten lazy lately. I got lucky this time)

The only damage was to:

1) A wonderful set of Koa that was being readied for a build took the main brunt of the water stream - along with a cocobolo neck blank that was sitting on top of it. The Koa is pretty warped - but the neck blank may be ok after a long dry time.

2) Two cocobolo headstock blanks that were sitting in the area are soaked.

3) The sinker redwood that I have listed in the classifieds took some water as I had it out taking photos of it a few days ago.

4) Some power supplies that were sitting on the floor are now full of water - so an Airport Extreme will have to be replaced in the next day or two.

They say they are going to have to pull cabinets away from walls. Remove shelves from walls. All to make sure we have no mold problems.

It will be total chaos around her for quite some time... but I tell you... it could have been so much worse!

Ok - time to be thankful and go to bed.

Our family mantra: "Nobody is bleeding, nobody died. This we can survive."

Whew!

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P A U L B U R N E R
Burner Guitars

Paul, I feel with you.

I had the same thing happen to me in my office at university a few weeks ago. A few hundred dollars worth of books as well as some original research data was destroyed, but it could have been much worse.

Good luck sorting through everything.
Christian

A lucky escape indeed. I'm sure that sinker redwood felt right at home.

Cheers
Pete

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Cheers
Pete

Pete - exactly what I thought. I think it will be fine. It was only minor.

The Koa is the sad one. It was a gorgeous set planned for a build to start in the next week or two.

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P A U L B U R N E R
Burner Guitars

Paul, perhaps Supersoft II can come to the rescue. I've not used it but perhaps others can comment on its suitability for this purpose.

Cheers
Pete

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Cheers
Pete

Just what one needs right before Christmas, huh? Sorry this happened to you.

Here's my water damage story from about 7 years ago: We were renovating a bathroom just over my workshop, and a water pipe froze and broke while we were away for the week-end. When we came home late at night on Sunday, I had about 10 cm of water on the workshop floor and water was pouring down from the ceiling over the bandsaw... EVERYTHING in the shop was soggy. After stopping the water and getting the water off the floor, I took all of the large machines, with cast iron parts bright red with rust by then, apart. I put all the parts on the floor in another room, dried them, got the rust off with WD-40, I can't remember how many cans. I had to tear down most of the ceiling, floors, open up a few walls, what a mess. Most of the wood was fine though, once it was all dry again. No instruments or parts were damaged, either.

Water in the workshop: no fun.

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

Sorry about your losses, Paul, but while unlucky, you were lucky!

I've had some good outcomes with soaked electronics. Keep them wet until you can get the casing off. Soak in distilled water for a day to wash out the naturally-occurring salts, then set aside to dry for a few days, in front of a fan. This has worked for me on two iPods and a digital recorder.

Pat

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formerly known around here as burbank
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

Paul, sorry to hear this happened to you, and kudos to you for your great attitude in first recognizing the priorities of life and limb before "stuff", and secondly for a cool-headed assessment of the damages and salvaging. I hope your losses are minimal, and that you can regain order asap.

Dennis

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Dennis Leahy
Duluth, MN, USA
7th Sense Multimedia

Sorry to hear your scary news, but you sound like you avoided a serious disaster.

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"Building guitars looks hard, but it's actually much harder than it looks." Tom Buck

I have a successful backup system that includes keeping one of my hard drives off site in case a major catastrophe occurs.

Well - my "off site" backup drive wasn't "off site"

I got REALLY lucky this time.

Years of work on 3 hard drives - triple backups of everything.... but if they had all gotten wet I would be lost.

I'm overwhelmed and didn't sleep much last night - and have hours and hours of boxing up stuff to do.

But - I've got a temporary guitar room set up - my humidifier is running - and it's 47% in here right now.

Even got a temporary office of sorts set up already.

Ok - time to go pack more.

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P A U L B U R N E R
Burner Guitars

Keep up the great attitude

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Say what you do, Do what you say.

Scary stuff given how much important business, technical, and personal information is on our computers. I used to do the offsite backup as well but it's just too easy to forget or whatever. About 6 months ago I started using an online backup service. The one I went with is Carbonite and so far I'm quite pleased. It runs in the background, doesn't interfere and automatically backs up any new or changed files. Not too expensive either.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Mmm, that's terrible, Paul. I'm glad that it seems like the major stuff is in good order. How bad is your koa? If it's unusable for a guitar, I wonder if it might work for one of my amps?

Paul;
I will gladly send you a piece of Coco for headstock veneers or fingerboards.
Do you have a bandsaw?
If not I'd gladly saw them for you and ship them-NO charge.

Mike

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Mike Collins

Mike,

A very gracious offer!

Let me get through the demo of my basement and find the wood that seems to have disappeared so I can look at its condition.

I'll be in touch.

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P A U L B U R N E R
Burner Guitars

Sorry for your loss but at least your able to look on the bright side. Most situations could be a lot worse. Let us know how it all turns out after the demo. Maybe a stupid question but insurance will probably cover the wood too right?