In the garden, and RAIN!!!!
POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Thursday, December 25, 2025 04:27
VIEWED: 1005090
PAGE 277 of 1154
Yeah... Pleased with how it looks. Not so pleased with my discovery tonight though...
Visqueen isn't going to do shit. After a full day of hard rain and thunderstorms, I'm looking at enough water in the porch crawlspace to draw a full bath.
It's mainly coming from the back. Of everything I did my shitty tuckpointing job in the front, there's only a dark spot or two on the wall inside. I noticed one part that was under the flooring that I hadn't even hit that is leaking a fair bit, but nothing serious on the front end.
The back though... OMG. The lowest layer of blocks is a bit further out than the rest of them that are more or less straight. Who knows how much rainwater got in from there, but I also see quite a bit of evidence of water leaking in from the two layers on top of that as well. Even with a flashlight I couldn't take a very good video of it now because I'm afraid to even plug in my halogen lamps that I left down there right now.
The good news is that everything I had tuck pointed from outside and tarred are dry as a bone. It's everything beneath it that is bad.
I don't think there's any way I can put the floor in now until I figure out something to fix this issue. I never would have imagined this much water coming in from the walls. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. The damage to that wall was extensive. I guess the repercussions of some things don't really hit home though until you see them in action.
Humidity must have been a constant issue down there the entire time I lived here, and possibly decades before that as well. Really kind of clueless how to proceed now. I don't think asking my friend about it will yield any results. If he knew anything about this he would have told me what to do when he saw the cinder blocks all pushed in in the first place.
No way around it, I suppose. I think I'm going to have to trench out the entire back wall, jack the entire wall up for much, much longer than I'm comfortable doing, re-set everything and re-tuck point everything. I seriously doubt any of the work I've done both inside and out on that wall is going to hold up if I have to move the very bottom row of cinder blocks.
Unless... there is some way I can add something to the bottom row on the inside that would block it and withstand a reasonable test of time.
It doesn't seem like any of this is seeping through the actual house foundation. The sump pump has been going like clockwork again at least the last 3 or 4 hours, but the ground in the house crawl is relatively dry since the pump is working.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Some guy on a DIY forum made a suggestion that makes sense, but I don't think it will fix my problem because the bottom blocks are out too far and it would only work if they were pushed in further than the rest of the blocks. He said to trench out the wall and use screw jacks to push the blocks back out, then crack the top of every other top block and pour concrete in until it's full. Again, I don't think this would help me because I'd have to jack the bottom bricks from the outside.
Those bottom bricks are probably where they're supposed to be as well, and it would be all of the bricks on top of it that are too far out. I dunno. This is beyond me. I'm starting to worry about things again. I might need to just wrap everything up as quickly as I can so I can sell the house as-is and get out. Main house is fine, but I don't know what to do about the porch foundation.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Quote:
Originally posted by 1KIKI:Quote:
Originally posted by 1KIKI:
Hey Brenda
As you know, I am hearing impaired. And yet ... even though I TRY to remember!, when dealing with relatives who I know are also hearing impaired - I STILL will walk away while talking to them, or try talking from another room, about half the time. It is SUCH a bad habit! And they - do the same to me!
Your boss and her husband - I don't know if they're even trying, or just blitheringly oblivious to others. I'm just saying they may need to be reminded.
Quote:I hear ya' on that! HA HA! And from personal experience, I know how irritating it is when someone does that. It seems so - inconsiderate is the nicest word. But I also know that even with my personal experience and my good intentions, I have failed to eradicate the habit in myself!
Originally posted by Brenda:
Hi Kiki,
I do sort of know they have some problems with their hearing as they are in their 70s and I try not to talk to them while walking out of a room and stuff.
To me, they are not trying and are just oblivious to anything outside of their own spheres. As I said yesterday was the 3rd time that I have told her about this and asked her not to do that. And I am sick of doing that. So if they get a "what?" thrown back at them then that is there fault. Impolite or not. I deserve some respect.
A "what?" does seem perfectly appropriate, and not at all impolite, however!
I know I haven't eradicated from me either.
As much as I am sure they won't like it "what?" is about all I have left for them on this subject.
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Rained this evening and had some dark clouds roll in. Thought it was going to storm but didn't.
Was going to bake my birthday cake but discovered that I am missing a couple of items. Will do it tomorrow after I go shopping after I get the laundry done.
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Wow. Something is definately wrong with the drainage around here tonight. I just looked out my kitchen window and there's a big pickup truck that is out in the street right now with water more than halfway up the tires and nearly up into his cab. He seems to be doing something out there, but I can't tell what he's trying to do.
I knew it was raining bad today, but the weather service says there are floods all over here right now. We've already had 5 to 6 inches of rain since 11AM today and it's not going to let up until at least 2AM.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Yup. I'm not getting any sleep tonight...
Ditch system isn't broken. It just can't keep up with the water. City guys have been up and down the street occasionally, making sure the sewers weren't clogged, but mostly just jerking each other off since there's nothing that can be done.
Hasn't been raining hard the last few hours like most of the day, but it's just a steady flow now and I've watched half of my very large front lawn be devoured by the flood. In just a few hours I've watched it creep up about 5 feet closer to my house. It's about 15 feet from taking over my garage and maybe 18 feet from coming up to my house. Thank god the power is still on. But since it doesn't look like there is any end in sight for this rain for a long time, that might be moot. If it gets up to my house it's only a matter of time before it comes in the 1st floor and then I'm totally screwed.
Rarely in my life have I ever felt this sense of dread and helplessness before.
I feel like I should be doing something, but there's absolutely nothing I can do but wait it out and hope.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Please let us know how things are going, Jack!
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Not only did it turn out fine, but had I just gone to sleep last night around 10PM and slept through the night, I wouldn't even have known that it had happened.
Seriously. There is zero evidence that nearly 75% of my lawn was flooded by 3:30AM. I expected maybe mud or debris everywhere, but there's nothing besides some more leaves that have fallen off the maple trees.
I couldn't even take a video of it or the short time where water in my porch crawlspace was standing because my tablet doesn't seem to have any sort of torch, and although it was bright enough for the human eye to see everything, the tablet didn't show anything but some small glare from street lights off of the water.
By around 4:00-4:30, the rain had finally slowed down for a while and I could actually see that it had receeded back to the street about as much as it had crept up between 10:45PM when I first noticed it until 3:30AM.
About the porch...
There's no telling how much water I took in the crawl through the bad cinder blocks. Right now, dirt on the back half is wet, but toward the front where the wall seems to be in excellent shape comparatively the dirt is still dry.
When thinking about the fact that the plywood under surface is bright and shiny and looks new like the stuff we just bought yesterday, and the fact that the joists that were bad on the ends around the bad sills and outside joists were more or less in good shape in the middle, I don't think that the humidity issue is very critical, to be honest.
I had a great test yesterday that proved that there is zero water getting on any of the wood from outside now after sealing up the back windows. As long as I do a good job installing the windows on the front and sealing them up, and I buy a high quality storm door and install it correctly, any liquid water touching any of the wood structure should be kept outside from now on.
As much rain as we had, the ground must have been fairly dry because I didn't take any water in the living area of my house. This spring, with the heavy rain we had for months, there was probably about 3 gallons of water that had seeped its way onto the tile and cement floors over the whole of the season. This leads me to believe that even with the heavy rainfall if I had had gutters on the back of the porch that were lead away properly, I probably would have taken much less water in the porch crawl.
Still going to see what my friend and his dad say, but I'm thinking this might not be the end of the world and as long as I keep any liquid water from getting into the walls and onto the wood structure it should be fine putting the floor back in.
Maybe building an access panel for myself until I'm ready to move isn't the worst idea in the world afterall though. I could then easily put a powerful fan down there and leave it open during the heavy rain springs and see how much better it does when I have gutters up everywhere. I can always cover that up with carpet or tile or something before selling the house and nobody would know the door was there until if/when they tear up the flooring again.
Anyhow, crisis averted. 
I'm exhausted. Probably chain smoked two packs of cigarettes last night and didn't even get to sleep until around 4:30-5:00AM.
Don't want to go back to sleep now and put my schedule all out of wack, but I don't imagine I'm going to be getting much done today either.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Laundry day in a few moments if any of the machines are free.
Later peeps.
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