In the garden, and RAIN!!!!
POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Thursday, December 25, 2025 04:27
VIEWED: 1005090
PAGE 168 of 1154
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Just keep in mind that if the economy slows down, or we suffer a giant crash, landscaping jobs will be the first to go as people try to save money. Also, don't ASSUME that you can get a job with your step-cousin, you better ASK. And you better be sure of the answer you get, and that it isn't wobbly.
However, if a job is assured and your daily expenses would be about the same here or there, then job or no job would have the same impact here or there. in other words, jobless at your new place would be the same as jobless at your current place, and all you would need to do is be able to pay taxes to stay "homed".
It's more than landscaping. It's mowing lawns and all other sorts of things. I haven't spoken to him in years, but he's a pretty handy guy like me. You're right. Shouldn't make assumptions about anything.
This place isn't exactly in the boonies though. There is a walmart, mcdonalds and other fast food joints. I assume there's at least one big box home depot type store around there. There aren't many decent jobs out there for 40 year old white males without college degrees in 2019, but there's always a shitty part time wage out there with the high turnoever rates of those jobs.
There is a difference between "suburbs" of Peoria vs. suburbs of Chicago though, even NWI suburbs. They are smaller, for sure. But that's part of the draw. It's also why the houses are more affordable out there. Some of the houses listed in that area that are far out of my reach top off around nearly $300k there. If they were in or around some of the Chicago suburbs I grew up in, they'd be closer to a million bucks.
There's no way around the taxes issue. Some light research on listed homes yesterday on the local assessor's office proved my theory right. Nearly any home that I move in will be somewhat to considerably more property taxes than I'm paying right now. After a low income tax break I get here, my yearly taxes are actually under $1,000. Taxes there would likely be anywhere from $600 to $800 more than I'm paying now, for a much smaller house and yard. Not a deal breaker by any means. It's still less than I thought I was going to pay in this house before I fought them. It's just something I'll have to add to my cost of living.
I've only seen one house in my desired price range that I really, really liked so far, but realized that it was 30 minutes away from my brother, defeating half of my purpose of moving. Not that I'm in any position yet to consider moving, but nothing so far popping up is what I'd be looking for. I definitely don't want to rush anything and want to make sure that I'd be happy with this one, since it's likely the house I'm going to die in this time.
Houses listed in my range right now require moderate to a large amount of work. I can deal with moderate. I don't want to take on another full rehab though, even if the land is dry. The problem with them, really, is that they're all larger homes too. I have no need for a $40,000 to $60,000 3-4 bedroom, 2 bathroom house that needs a ton of work. I'm hoping to find a smaller 2 bed/1 bathroom house that is a lot closer to "move in" quality in that price range when I'm ready. My old man has looked out there from time to time and says that if they're not up there now, they will be.
My brother is going to be keeping an eye out now too, but I told him not to get his hopes up that this will happen any time soon. Emotionally, I want to leave tomorrow, but I know that I have a lot of work to do unless I want to lose a ton of equity. I'm not going to waste any money making this place my definition of "Perfect", but I do have a lot of things I could sink money into that were left unfinished that I shouldn't have any problems recouping on the back end. If I don't even attempt to make the basement
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Basement shower. Basin is there, but water would go all over? just get one of those shower curtains, makes a full circle, or leave one side a shower curtain that stays in place, overlapping, and then all the water just flows into the basin.
Walls are easy. Get the 2x4s at Home Depot that are discards, or whatever the term is for the cheap stuff. None of these are load bearing, so no big deal. If you want a vent, run it to join with your clothes dryer output. Doesnt need to be fancy, a 2nd bsath, or half bath, or 3/4 bath really makes a difference in the pricing, compared to 1 bath. Let new owners chose whatever remodeling they want to do with it. When you have a home with more than one shower, you cn remodel the other bath without a major inconvenience.
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It's just the base of one of those shower kits. There's bare studs behind it and bare joists on top of it. I could rig up a circular curtain, but it would be pretty ghetto.
Turns out I've got bigger problems. I noticed a big hole in the dirt by the house yesterday, and today I did some digging and investigating. It seems the ants have caused more havoc and there's been a lot of shifting of the ground in front of the house too. The storm drain pipe no longer is attached to the house. The shower I never use in the basement is expelled this way, as well as the laundry, the kitchen sink upstairs and the sump pump that is always working. (No sewage/toilets. The shower, sink and toilet upstairs as well as the toilet in the basement are expelled from the back of the house and there's no evidence there is any problems there).
The storm drain still has a grade down toward the street and doesn't seem to be backed up. When the pump runs, the water fills to the top of the hole, and is constantly draining through the pipe, but a lot of the water just goes into the soil around the pipe and stays right at the foundation. The pipe from the house is higher than the pipe in the sewer, and I checked a bunch of walls in the house and they all seem level. Checked the foundation inside and what I could see from the digging outside and it seems to still have all of its integrity. I don't believe the foundation of the house is sinking, because the pipe going out is higher than the detached storm drain by about 1/2". I have no clue how to fix this problem, even temporarily. I can't find anything online about it either.
I have no idea how long this has been going on. Could be for a very long time since my pump is always going off.
I'm kind of freaking out right now. I may just have to sell this house to anybody for any price before it all falls apart on me. I'm out of my depth here.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Back on line.
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6ix needs Flex-Seal. $20 at Walmart.
Wrap a rubber collar around the gap, spanning the separation, give a little play for future shifting. Seal it all with Felx-Seal. Test and fill it back in.
There used to be repair collars, like metal. But it seems everybody uses the rubber ones now. If your pipe size is small enough, you can just use the giant hose clamps - think I've seen 8" diameter repair rubber collars, and the hose clamps that go with them. See that stuff at home depot all the time. Once installed, the repair joints knda self-seal, from the gunk inside. Not going to stop it from separating in the future, but neither did your metal/concrete/whatever original, either.
Since you have a gap, that makes it really easy to install the repair collar.
To somewhat stress test it, fill both sinks in the kitchen, and the sump well just to a level right below the trigger. Then unstop both sinks, run down and hand trip the sump pump switch (or have a big bucket of water handy). If the ground stays dry, you are good.
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The gap is only around 1/8" It didn't really separate lengthwise all that much and it's just lower where the pipe goes out to the street than it is from the house. It looks clean, so I assume it was joined somehow, but I didn't find any remnants of whatever joined it while I was down there. I would probably have to cut part of the pipe to make it bigger to get a collar on there. Any idea how I could cut an iron pipe in a two foot deep, constantly wet and muddy hole?
I filled the hole back in yesterday after I miserably failed trying to rig up something temporary to join them. I figure that since there is still grade and a good deal of water still manages to make it out regardless, I didn't want that exposed to prying eyes while I'm having all these other problems that I'm going to have to get the city involved.
It's easy enough to dig back up. The clean out is my marker.... assuming that the mud doesn't get washed away immediately and I'm left with another hole in a week.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Quote:For the collar, you might make your own if you don't want to cut a bought one. Take a metal shears to an old tire, they even have steel belting in them - maybe even run some bolts through the overlap (at the top). Then Flex-Seal the top overlap flap, plus the house side and Street side.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
The gap is only around 1/8" It didn't really separate lengthwise all that much and it's just lower where the pipe goes out to the street than it is from the house. It looks clean, so I assume it was joined somehow, but I didn't find any remnants of whatever joined it while I was down there. I would probably have to cut part of the pipe to make it bigger to get a collar on there. Any idea how I could cut an iron pipe in a two foot deep, constantly wet and muddy hole?
I filled the hole back in yesterday after I miserably failed trying to rig up something temporary to join them. I figure that since there is still grade and a good deal of water still manages to make it out regardless, I didn't want that exposed to prying eyes while I'm having all these other problems that I'm going to have to get the city involved.
It's easy enough to dig back up. The clean out is my marker.... assuming that the mud doesn't get washed away immediately and I'm left with another hole in a week.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
For alignment, you didn't say how much play was in the street wide pipe. With all that flooding action, it may have settled and got packed down. Also, how much pipe sticking out of the house? If you are able to lift/hoist the end of the street side pipe, then wedge some bricks under it. With already settled &packed dirt, that can hold it up quite a while, without water washout all the time. Even surface bricks need vehicle weight to settle down much. Otherwise, some angle iron, triple strapped to the top of Street side pipe (leave a spacer for the collar), could then rest upon the house pipe, to keep the slope aligned.
Actually, that Flex-Seal is supposed to be quite durable. For the water-seal, maybe just duct tape the gap, providing a surface and form for the Flex-Seal to adhere to while it dries. But before you let all the dirt get dried and packed, see how much play there is in lifting that Street side pipe.
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There's just about zero play in the street pipe. It's packed down good. There are heavy decorative stone units that divide the lawn from the dirt on the side of the house for landscaping. I'm sure that weight isn't helping matters there.
I might be able to remove more dirt when I finally decide to do something about it, but whatever I do is likely to draw a lot of attention. My house is really far from the curb from your average house, but it's not going to look like I'm just doing gardening when my arms are disappearing down to my shoulder along the side of the house.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Quote:Your wheelbarrow or yard wagon full of gardening tools should hide you. Grab one for cheap at a yard sale.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
There's just about zero play in the street pipe. It's packed down good. There are heavy decorative stone units that divide the lawn from the dirt on the side of the house for landscaping. I'm sure that weight isn't helping matters there.
I might be able to remove more dirt when I finally decide to do something about it, but whatever I do is likely to draw a lot of attention. My house is really far from the curb from your average house, but it's not going to look like I'm just doing gardening when my arms are disappearing down to my shoulder along the side of the house.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
Maybe those stone untis did the damage. After getting the pipe action done, on each side of the pipe, place and stack a few layers of brick. Put 6-12" or more of topsoil back on top. This should allow the brick to support the weight of the surface stones instead of the pipe.
If you haven't moved the stone unit directly above the pipe yet, then do the pipe stuff first, mark clearly where the pipe is (maybe eyeball a spot on the sidewalk and chqlkmark it), and then a week or 2 later go to the stone and move it to shore up bricks under it, or just leave it alone. If you didn't install those stones, then it took this long to create the problem, and will take that long for the problem to repeat.
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Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:Quote:Your wheelbarrow or yard wagon full of gardening tools should hide you. Grab one for cheap at a yard sale.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
There's just about zero play in the street pipe. It's packed down good. There are heavy decorative stone units that divide the lawn from the dirt on the side of the house for landscaping. I'm sure that weight isn't helping matters there.
I might be able to remove more dirt when I finally decide to do something about it, but whatever I do is likely to draw a lot of attention. My house is really far from the curb from your average house, but it's not going to look like I'm just doing gardening when my arms are disappearing down to my shoulder along the side of the house.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
Maybe those stone untis did the damage. After getting the pipe action done, on each side of the pipe, place and stack a few layers of brick. Put 6-12" or more of topsoil back on top. This should allow the brick to support the weight of the surface stones instead of the pipe.
If you haven't moved the stone unit directly above the pipe yet, then do the pipe stuff first, mark clearly where the pipe is (maybe eyeball a spot on the sidewalk and chqlkmark it), and then a week or 2 later go to the stone and move it to shore up bricks under it, or just leave it alone. If you didn't install those stones, then it took this long to create the problem, and will take that long for the problem to repeat.
Wheelbarrow is a good idea. I've got one. Should do the trick. I'm not the bright shiny center of the universe, but when I'm doing something like this you just get that paranoid feeling that all eyes are on you.
By "stone units", I mean things that are way too heavy for me to lift. They're decorative dividers that slither like a snake. I never measured one of them, but I can't believe they're less than 10' long and would probably take 3 or 4 people to move them. They're not natural, they're fabricated. I've never seen anything like them before, so I don't know what else you'd call them except for landscape dividers.
I don't think they did the damage themselves, but the ground has shifted after years of not having gutters, and all of the recent ant activity. Probably made it even worse once the pipe broke and all that additional water was alongside the house all the time.
That's why I'm happy to see that the pipe coming from the house (about 4") is higher than the pipe going out to the street. Because of that, and taking the level on what I believe to be load bearing walls in the house checks out, I don't think the house has shifted at all. However, the concrete slab under the shed at the end of the porch is cracked in half. It always was, but now there is about an inch in between and it's obvious to the naked eye that it's way out of level. That is supporting most of the weight of the roof for the porch right now. Checking the headers for level, there is a bad dip toward the slab now. That's why I said that has to go.
This shifting of the slab also moved the small gated metal fence to the point you can't really close it anymore. I never liked it and always wanted to replace that one day, so not too bummed about that, but at the far end it's also messing with the siding on the garage because of the shift.
These ants are like the plague. I don't know what to do about them. Even if I gave up trying and paid big bucks for pros to come out, my idiot neighbor has been infested with them for years and I can't believe that his garage that hasn't been sided since I've lived here is even still standing. My next door neighbors that I like have had them in their house. I warned them to start putting stuff down and showed them the massive ant hills in between our houses that he thought were from gophers (I thought that too before
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