Too Much Water

I’m not even sure where to start this blog post.  I’ve had a few tiring days involving too much water.  I guess I’ll go back to Monday morning where it all began.

The hum of the sump pump is a good thing even if it kind of keeps you awake at night.  I reminded myself of that when I rolled over around 3 AM.  Given the amount of snow we still have and the heavy rain that was coming down, the pump needed to run.  I only wish that was all I heard.  Around 7 AM I woke up again.  This time it was to the obnoxious sound of our alarms indicating an issue in the basement.  And so my day began.

I quickly discovered water on the basement floor.  We have what we thought was two drains plus a sump pump drain.  One of the drains never had water around it, or not that I can recall seeing.  I took our 16-gallon wet-dry vacuum and sucked it up.  The darn thing was way too heavy for me to empty so I had to take bucket after bucket out, pouring it into the sump pump area.  It was a rinse and repeat effort, and I quickly realized there was no end in sight.

What I also discovered when removing the cover was that this supposed drain had what looked to be a pipe of sorts feeding into it.  I was baffled.  At one point I sent a text to both the kiddo’s mother and grandmother saying I likely wouldn’t be able to make it to work until I could figure out a solution.  The grandmother texted back that her husband could come out later in the evening and take a look.  I didn’t hesitate to take her up on her offer, as I figured the issue would be too much for me to handle.  Meanwhile, for the next 12 hours, I kept on doing what I was doing to try and keep the water under control.

The kiddo’s grandparents showed up as promised.  The grandfather was as baffled as I was about the weird drain.  He had brought a pump with him and got that setup.  He felt the solution to the drain was to put in an additional sump pump and run it into the other one.  Originally he said he would come back in the morning with one, but later called and said they were on their way back to my house with one.  I was relieved since the pump he had brought was one that couldn’t run dry, meaning I’d have to prime it and run it every 15-20 minutes.

So, they come back with the pump, and even though he had measured it and bought the smallest size available, the diameter of the hole caused an issue with the float.  Nothing more could be done.  My fate was that I would be up all night turning it on and off.  And that is precisely what I did.  All I can say it that was a very long tiring and lonely night with just me and the sump pump and a mop.

Morning came, and the grandparents were back again.  Cement had to be broken to make more room for the pump.  He also had to make another trip back to town for some other parts.  By around 4 PM the job was done, with the pump doing what it was designed to do.

Amid all the activity at my house, I heard from my neighbors a few doors down.  They were dealing with 4 inches of water in their crawl.  I won’t go into all their details, but will say the last I talked to them, the water was rapidly rising and they were waiting on someone to come and help.

I wish I could say my water troubles were over, but they weren’t.  When I got home from work on Wednesday, I could see that our dock had come loose and was floating sideways on the lake.  Unfortunately, it was too far from my reach.  I got creative and tied a long rope to a small log.  Using a very long branch/stick, I was able to push the log under the dock, fish it back through and then secure the dock to a tree.  Not an easy job, but I was determined.  It was that, or I’d have needed to wade about 6-8 feet out (and in water that was at least 3 feet deep) to reach it.  Um, with ice still on the lake, it would have been a cold swim.

So what did this do for our finances?  Had I called a plumber, I know we would have had an enormous bill-likely exceeding $1,000.  The kiddo’s grandparents didn’t want to take anything, but I insisted they get paid.  They said the parts were $100, and we also agreed (with the grandmother’s suggestion) to a week of free childcare.  My hunch is that they help out with that expense, hence the suggestion.  I still don’t feel that is enough, so I’m planning on picking up a gift card as well.  I feel incredibly blessed to work for this family.

We still have 2-3 feet of snow running the length of our collapsed deck.  The snow and the slant of the deck are not helping the situation.  Here’s hoping for no more rain and a slow thaw for the remaining snow.  We don’t need any more water!