Miracle on 47th Street

So the other night my girlfriend and I found a bunch of water in her house. Not wanting to start tearing things up at one in the morning we went to bed considering the problem. I spent yesterday with my family...in the background considering the problem. I got here last night fully expecting that by now I would be up to my ears in water logged drywall, moldy carpet and the other detritus of disaster. Anyway, I pulled up the carpet and pad and we set up a fan to dry stuff out...especially the standing water on the slab. That was most important to me so I could trace any new water back to its source today.

As we went to bed to the accompaniment of the roaring fan we talked about what those sources might be. I was already feeling pretty good; drywall seemed pretty much unscathed, carpet soaked but no major moldering. Hose bib leaking in the wall and roof leak flowing down inside the chimney were my favored betting lines. The easiest thing to check though was the sprinklers; probability near zero, but really easy to check. I jokingly said 'first thing, we'll turn on the sprinklers, maybe one broke and by some weird twist it is shooting water straight into some gap in the siding.'

So the sprinkler is fixed using a spare part from the garage (cost = zero), carpet is almost dry and ready to put back down, and it's not even lunch time. Without the direct sprinkler blast for twenty minutes a day the minor roof leak on the down slope side of the chimney is hardly even worth fixing. Miracle made to order; can I call 'em or what?