This Flooded House: Shaun Sipma 2013 - KXNet - Bismarck/Minot/Williston/Dickinson

This Flooded House: Shaun Sipma 2013

The road back home has been bumpy and frustrating for many who were flooded in 2011.

Especially for those who are still working on returning to their homes.

Through the nearly two years, we've been following our own in the newsroom whose homes were damaged or destroyed.

Shaun Sipma's house suffered significant damage and he is rebuilding mostly on his own.

Tonight, a "This Flooded House" update that shows Shaun still has a few miles to travel on the long road home.

Take away the emotional and physical wear and tear and what's left?

Time and money.

The time to take a house down to the shell and start all over, and do it without hiring contractors, or just the bare minimum heating and air in our case, simply because the money just isn't there as my family like many doesn't qualify for recovery grants.

To the work at hand; we've been busy at our flooded house in northwest Minot when we started to rebuild in April 2012.

Recasing and resealing every window on the main floor as the flood water took its toll on the caulking.

Basement windows were also ordered and installed along with exterior doors.

Inside has been slow going from the sub-floor to rebuilding walls and a staircase.

Then the plumbing and wiring, sheetrock.

Just as we finish the rock on the main floor in late December, we ran into a little hitch.

A section of my sewer pipe underneath my basement floor collapsed in the midst of a cold snap.

Unable to shut off my furnace with the cold weather I built a containment room and went to cutting and jackhammering the floor and digging out the old cast iron pipe which will be replaced with PVC....

That little detour set me back another month.

In the meantime, our second floor is being pieced back together.

The carpet that was tore up because of mildew from the flood exposed the original hardwood which we want to refinish but first one section has to be replaced.

With tape and texturing, painting, flooring, and interior doors and cabinets, there's still much to do inside before we can even think about the work outside.

Yes I am holding true to my promise to shave when my family finally comes back home, but I can tell you this, the transformation here, the wood and paint pales in comparison to the impact all of it has had to the people that call this flooded house, home.

Shaun Sipma KX News.

Shaun and his family hope to be back living in their home sometime early this summer.

Tomorrow, we'll have a "This Flooded House" update from Jim Olson.