In the garden, and RAIN!!!!
POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Thursday, December 25, 2025 04:27
VIEWED: 1005090
PAGE 300 of 1154
Quote:Well ... crap.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Glad to see you found something that might work. I don't know how you live with it.
Jeez... it's COLD today. Only a high of 34 here, and the snow was already started when I woke up. Certainly didn't see that in the forecast leading up to today.
Unfortunately, my friend hasn't made it back here this week to install the door, and I was waiting on him to help me get the plastic over the louvers as well. Didn't think that would be a problem, but we've had 2 days of rain and now snow.
I've been through quite a few heavy rains and thunderstorms with zero windows behind those louvers, but just as I suspected, snow has been where the damage was done on the front side of that porch. The wall is wet now. Not drenched, but it's taking on water. I put a little plastic solution from the inside at the bottom that negates most of that as a temporary measure, but it's not waterproof. There's no way I'm going to be able to make it waterproof until I do a solution from the outside, and there's no way I'm doing it in the snow and wind and 30 degree temps.
Not a good day here. :(
Do Right, Be Right. :)
I can only hope that this is WAAYYY too early for the start of winter, which by my recollection starts after Thanksgiving, and the weather moderates a bit in the next few weeks. I'd guess the primary goal would be to put plastic up on the porch? Since it seems the sump pump / grading / pipe situation is good enough for now?
Though I was thinking about your sump pump a little while back and wondering if it's at the very bottom of the hole. If not, perhaps you could get a bit of extra water removal out of it by lowering the pump or inlet so it doesn't suck air, and readjusting the float to match, without doing anything else?
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Back from work a bit ago. Right foot tried to cramp while I was at work. Not fun.
Flipside my shirt smells like onions.:(
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The saga continues...
Power went out for no damn reason at all for two hours around 5PM. Went outside to pull my cans in while I had my last cigarette, because I knew this was going to be terrible...
I am so grateful that I didn't throw away the two large heavy duty plastic sump wells I had purchased years ago and never did anything with. They are the only reason I didn't flood.
By the time I had gotten down there, which had only been about 10 minutes after the power went out, the well was already overflowing and getting the dirt wet in the crawl space.
At first, I emptied filled up the 3 gallon bucket by hand a few times, crab walked it to the toilet, and realized that this was a losing battle. Then I remembered the plastic wells.
I dragged both of them down there and I filled both of them up by hand with the drinking glass to the top. I'm guessing they're around 30 to 35 gallons each... maybe more. I couldn't find any markings.
Water level in the pit was about 1" to 1 1/2" below the top afterward.
I then proceeded to carry out another 44 buckets worth of water to the toilet while trying to be quick about it while also maintaining a pace that wouldn't make my heart explode. In the middle of it, I had to get my flashlights and put them at various places, because other than the faint glow of 4 LED flashlights, I was in complete blackness for the last 20 or so minutes.
After a while, I just kind of resigned myself to the task. It's not as if there was anything else worth doing. I wouldn't have been able to sleep, knowing my basement was flooding. I was wet. I wouldn't be able to really take a shower in the dark. I would be without heat in the house for as long as the power was out with the low dropping to 25 tonight, possibly forcing me to figure out how to use my stove for heat while my basement flooded...
I figured I'd just keep bailing out water until A) the power came back on, B) my legs gave out or my heart exploded, or C) the flashlights died and I was left in complete darkness.
By around quarter to 7 it came on, and I can't even begin to tell you what a relief it was.
I re-bailed the water from the wells back into the sump, tried to clean up as best I could, verified everything is still working with the pump and was thankful to call it a night.
I'm so fucking done with this house.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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So...
My step dad says, you have a generator, why were you bailing water.
He's right. He gave it to me. I really don't have any excuse other than I was completely unprepared. 6 years without a power outage and I either thought I'd never get another one, or I thought it was magically going to just work in an emergency situation without any plan or the proper setup.
I've got extension cords, although I had always assumed that none of them would be up to the task. They're either low gauge and short, or high gauge and long. I'm pretty sure that doubling up on cords is a big no-no as well.
I'm going to spend some money I don't have and buy one that's up to the task after planning some things out and taking measurements. I'm really hoping that I can run it from my garage and get away with a 100" cord. I see a highly rated 20 AMP 100' cord that's $35 off that I could get for around 65 bucks right now. If I need to get a 150' cord though, I don't even want to think about how much that's going to run me.
I figure I'll get some brackets, hang the female end somewhere right by the sump, hang it through the ceiling in the crawl to the door and keep it rolled up somewhere near the entrance.
If I have my generator set somewhere in the garage ready to go with a can of gas that's full, all I'll have to do next time is go down, plug the sump into the cord, unravel it out to the garage and plug it in the generator, fill her up and get her started and be done with it.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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SIX: Jeez, What a trial!
Seems like the storm went from west to east, as usual. Sis texted that after a day of rain she had water coming up from the floor drain in the basement. That's not storm water, that's sanitary sewer water, so today she has to swab the decks with bleach. That used to be such a big problem ... like, 1 foot deep problem ...that we set up a bunch of storage shelves for her to get everything up off the floor.
In her neighborhood there is a small group of a half-dozen houses where the power ALWAYS went out with the slightest wind, or sometimes for no reason at all. It took NYSG&E over a dozen years, and a call to one of the local TV complaint resolution shows, to fix the problem, which turned out to be an untrimmed tree, if you can believe it!
Anyway, her neighbor let her run a power cord from their house to hers. She used it to keep the furnace and frig running. Maybe you can use your generator to keep your sump and/or furnace going, that way you can be warm AND dry!
Sorry to hear about your friend not coming over. I hope he does at soonest possible, your three-month forecast is colder and wetter than usual.
BTW, I know the floor was a big headache when it wasn't done and a big relief when it was but ... what kind of floor are you talking about? 4X8 3/4 plywood, right? Just curious.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
You idiots have been oppressing the entire sexual spectrum as long as you have existed. I can't wait for the day your kind is dead - WISHIMAY
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Bright sunny day but it will be cold.
On the flipside I don't know why my boss's husband is so surprised that I watch my diet so close. I said as per usual if I don't I run the risk of making myself sick. He then said, "Most people don't care and eat things anyway."
Well, I don't want to deal with the consequences of making myself sick.
Also because my seizure meds are so sensitive to fruit acids, he again made the comment that I should ask for them to be changed. Had to explain to him that that is not how they work. I am stuck with these things until they stop working or they can't go any higher on the dose.
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Just a brief weather update - the official red-flag warning has been dropped, even though the temps are a little warmer and the air is still dry, dry, dry. For example, the relative humidity at the moment is 4%. I think they consider wind, temps, and humidity in their red-flag estimation?/ calculation? and the winds are down. The low humidity and higher temps will continue through saturday, by sunday the humidity'll be up over 15% and hold there through the forecast, while the temps will be the same as now.
Jack - I feel for you! I have also pushed myself at times in my life to the feeling like my heart would explode. It's an extremely uncomfortable situation. I'm really glad you have some wiggle room with having a generator on hand even though it'll cost some money, time, and effort to get it all set up.
But jeeze louise, no wonder you're so done with that house!
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
SIX: Jeez, What a trial!
Sorry to hear about your friend not coming over. I hope he does at soonest possible, your three-month forecast is colder and wetter than usual.
BTW, I know the floor was a big headache when it wasn't done and a big relief when it was but ... what kind of floor are you talking about? 4X8 3/4 plywood, right? Just curious.
Wasn't his fault for not coming. It's been raining like crazy the last 3 days until it turned to show. I really couldn't work on it in those conditions so I didn't even bother calling him. Tentatively, we're planning on Monday. It's got to be done by Wednesday at the latest though because the bottom really drops out on Thursday.
Yes. The floor is 4x8 3/4" plywood (non-green). The floor itself wasn't really getting wet... It was the stuff leaking in the crappy aluminum down the inside walls, no doubt getting our new joists and sills (green) all wet. It's what's been going on for years now behind the scenes, I just now had the displeasure of actually witnessing it firsthand.
Quote:
Originally posted by 1KIKI:
Jack - I feel for you! I have also pushed myself at times in my life to the feeling like my heart would explode. It's an extremely uncomfortable situation. I'm really glad you have some wiggle room with having a generator on hand even though it'll cost some money, time, and effort to get it all set up.
But jeeze louise, no wonder you're so done with that house!
Yeah. I think the worst part about last night though was the not knowing. Without anything better to do I figured I'd just push on until an outside circumstance prevented me from doing it anymore. Once I got in the rhythm and stopped being in full panic mode, I was able to get a pace going that was probably maintainable for a few more hours while also seeing a very slight noticible improvement in the water level in the well say every 15 minutes of bailing or so.
That being said though, I knew it was only a matter of time until something gave out, and although I was hoping the power was going to come back on I figured I was just postponing the inevitable.
Glad I didn't give in to that doom and gloom in the back of my head and kept pressing on though. The power came back on and the basement was bone dry because of the work I did.
Just got back from the hardware store. I was wrong about the sale price I saw. (That was for a 50 footer).
The one I bought is 10GA, 15A, 100FT industrial, rated for outdoor use. About $120 with tax and a few hooks to install it in my crawlspace. Amazon has the exact same cord for $200, and I saw it on another site for $220. Didn't know if that was a mistake or not, but I wasn't going to wait and find out so I ran up there right away and bought it for an insanely low price.
When I told my step dad the one I got he laughed and said that I'm not going to have any problems running the pump off of that cord and he thinks I went overboard.
Better safe than sorry, I figure. I don't want to have to worry about this bullshit anymore and it's not worth worrying just to save $40 bucks.
My plan is to install everything tomorrow and do a live field test with the generator and sump pump. No sense in waiting until the next emergency to figure out if it's going to work right.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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The rain is going to be missing us but there is an air quality awareness out. Particulate matter in the air and so people with breathing problems are being told to be aware.
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Perfecto!
Everything works great. I let the generator run for an hour straight. I immediately forced a near full well to pump out off the generator, and followed that up with a full load of laundry. I'm still getting enough water in through the inlet for it to go off by itself every 10 minutes or so, so it went off at least another 4 times on its own before I shut everything down and put it back on the main.
The hooks I bought were perfect for the application too, but my cheap ass didn't buy enough of them. I don't think I really had any idea how thick and heavy this cord was going to be until I got down there with it. Going to pick up a half dozen of them later today or tomorrow, get them installed and also figure out if the shelf support I was planning on using is going to be durable enough for the job or if I'm going to need to buy something better. The support I have is probably good enough, but I'm going to be hanging about 80 feet of the heaviest damn extension cord I've ever owned on it, so I need to make absolutely sure it will work for the long haul.
While I was at it, I also did a test on my snow blower and fired up my leaf blower for good measure. Went to fill the air in the snowblower tires and wouldn't you know it... One of them are flat. :( I'm not sure why that always happens with small tires in my garage like that. This is my third flat since I've owned the house. I'm sure those tires aren't cheap to replace and/or fix either. Going to want to take care of that ASAP either way though.
Won't let that bring my mood down though. It's been a great day. :)
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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