Started raining in the game room... ... fu...

Scucci

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I've been out working in the game room for a few hours and I was just about done working on the color films on BreakOut when I hear the little pitter-patter of water falling on something.

For some reason my first thought was "Shit! One of my machines is leaking!!!" ... then I quickly realized that, in no way, did that come anywhere NEAR making any sense.

I came around the corner to see a stream of water coming out of one of the base of one of the drop lights in the ceiling... about 3" away from my Tron and ICB...

After pulling the light down and some testing, it turns out that our cast iron drain pipe from the upstairs kitchen has started leaking. Luckily it waited till AFTER the dish washer was done with it's wash cycle before it unloaded on me. So now I get to spend the next hour or so moving machines around to make room under where that pipe runs so we can cut out the drywall and see WTF is going on.

I guess it's just going to be one of those weeks. ... but, FWIW, Breakout is looking a bit better now that I've pulled the films. ... I haven't put them back on yet, but I did slap them in place to see how they looked and they look amazing. So... at least that's one good thing.
 
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At least you were there and caught it before it got worse. Just imagine if you were away and came home to find it... :(
 
oh great one of the pipes broke. I've seen this before but without the arcade machines and know how much of a mess this is. Good thing you got it early before it did all that much...
 
Yeah, this one sucks a little. Turns out the pipe is leaking because it rusted through in the middle of the run... so we're going to have to cut out a large bit of the ceiling and replace the entire run of the pipe... about 12' or so. What a mess... again, luckily it didn't rain on any of my machines, but still... the last thing I need is more holes in my ceiling/wall.

I had to move Robotron and SpaceInvaders to get a ladder up there to see... now it looks like I'm going to have to move Tron, ICB and Elevator Action out of the way... but it's so packed in here there is no where to move them.

Cast iron plumbing... brilliant... le sigh.
 
Well about 10 years ago I had a little over 20 machines in my basement and I lost it all. When I came home I appently had a indoor swimming pool in my basement main water line had broke right near the house and just flooded the whole basement. I am just now getting back into collecting machines again and havent decided if my heated garage or my basement will be the new arcade room yet leaning towards the garage as it is 45 feet long.
 
Fortunate you were there... Here is pic of the inside of a house I was working at a little over a month ago. Pipe broke upstairs while the owner was on vacation. The water ran basically full blast until a neighbor saw water coming out the front door.

House is on a slab, this is the first floor not the basement! The entire downstairs had to be gutted, much of it re-framed and re-wired. Yikes.
 

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That pic looks like my parents' place about 10 years ago...and 10 years before that...and...

They're in a flood zone. The place has been remodeled several times since I was a kid. I grew up basically without a downstairs :p At least this last time they didn't put any carpet back in when they remodeled.

Anyway, good to hear the games are safe :)
 
Yeah, this one sucks a little. Turns out the pipe is leaking because it rusted through in the middle of the run... so we're going to have to cut out a large bit of the ceiling and replace the entire run of the pipe... about 12' or so. What a mess... again, luckily it didn't rain on any of my machines, but still... the last thing I need is more holes in my ceiling/wall.

This made me think of the scene in U-571 when the dude's tapping the pipe with the little hammer to check for weak spots... :D

Sorry to hear that man but remember, like others have said, you could have come home to find your games all damp and shid....
 
This made me think of the scene in U-571 when the dude's tapping the pipe with the little hammer to check for weak spots... :D

Sorry to hear that man but remember, like others have said, you could have come home to find your games all damp and shid....

To add to the luck, since it's just the drain pipe, it waited till after the dishwasher was completely done with it's wash cycle (it was starting it's drying cycle)... so I only got the last little bit of water. Had it broke during the wash/rinse cycles... I wouldn't've been so lucky.

I know I was pretty lucky... but in a couple of hours it's not going to feel that way when I'm up to my shoulders in the ceiling yanking out a huge cast iron pipe.



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We still have several houses around here that still look like that. We had a REALLY bad flood here in Mid-TN a couple of years ago, and a lot of people weren't allowed to, or couldn't afford to, repair their houses. ... I lucked out then too.
 
Well, it's kind of been a blessing in disguise... pull Roboton and Eleveator Action from the wall is a nightmare, and both had some issues.

I've tweaked the monitor on Elevator Action and it's looking much better (touched up a few solder joints). And I've touched up the Robotron monitor (4600), so it's more stable now. Also pulled and re-crimped the ROM board cable, so hopefully that'll take care of the reset/freezing issues... hopefully that was also part of the cause with my scoreboard resetting and getting garbled (although I think the switcher in there has more to do with it...)

Still don't have the pipe fixed as it's a nightmare... Getting to the connectors on the pipe to even remove the old pipe is near impossible without going in from the top.
 
Glad you are keeping things positive. At least it wasn't too bad and nothing was lost.

I am the same way sometimes, I'll have a game that works but might have a minor issue that isn't that hard to fix but just don't bother to move everything around to get to it. That is why I need a bigger place. I never got into Tetris but that is what my house is like with games.
 
Glad you are keeping things positive. At least it wasn't too bad and nothing was lost.

I am the same way sometimes, I'll have a game that works but might have a minor issue that isn't that hard to fix but just don't bother to move everything around to get to it. That is why I need a bigger place. I never got into Tetris but that is what my house is like with games.

Yeah, but just to try to stay as negative as possible... I did notice there are still bee's nests and owl shit on Robotron. I got the cabinet out of a barn and spent about a day cleaning it up till it was "good enough"... then pushed it against the wall and forgot about it. ... so... yeah, gonna have to finish cleaning it now. ... and yes, I consider cleaning a bad thing because I'm amazingly lazy.
 
I had some games barely make it through the Nashville flood -- my DK only made it through some quick action -- was stored in a garage at the time and had to be moved up into the bed of a pickup just as the water made its way. Only had room and time for one game!

But anyway, just posting in here that if that Robotron is taking up too much space at your place, I'm sure I could find a nice dry spot for it....
 
Someone else from Nashville? Weird, I thought I knew everyone in the area that collected.

Na, Robotron's got plenty of space here. Besides, she has NO art on her. No sideart, bezel, marquee, CPO... nothing... not really what most people are looking for.

Of all the machines, I only know of 1 that was destroyed. My friend had a TMNT: Turtles in Time on location at a bar down the road from his house. Completely destroyed, was under 6+ft of water. :(
 
I have been noticing more and more people from Nashville posting, but so far I have only met two people (that I know about, and one is DreamTR).

The most damage from the flood to people I have known personally has been some cars lost (under water) and some people with rental units that ended up completely flooding.

I am actually really lucky in the sense I didn't lose any property and actually ended up with several days off work due to the flood destroying what I was working on and the company decided to just trash what we were doing and go a different direction.
 
I have been noticing more and more people from Nashville posting, but so far I have only met two people (that I know about, and one is DreamTR).

Yeah, I know DreamTR from the arcade, Jay too. Robert who was also with the arcade I've known since we were in high school. I've met pretty much everyone through the arcade, but haven't really hung out with any of them in a long time.

It's good to know there are a few more people from the area on here. Should make for better results when I finally get moved, get a real game room set up, and get a party going.
 
That pic looks like my parents' place about 10 years ago...and 10 years before that...and...

They're in a flood zone. The place has been remodeled several times since I was a kid. I grew up basically without a downstairs At least this last time they didn't put any carpet back in when they remodeled.

We Dutch invented something against floods, they are called dikes. These prevent people from having to re-do their homes every 10 years. Or drowning. Quite handy.
O wait, they cost tax money...nahhh forget 'm :D


cast iron drain pipe
Geez, how old is your home to still have that ?
 
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We Dutch invented something against floods, they are called dikes. These prevent people from having to re-do their homes every 10 years. Quite handy.
O wait, they cost tax money.

We have two kinds of "dikes" here and nether one will stop a flood. :)
 
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