On Sat, 6 Jan 2001, k.camplate wrote:
> Hello all! I've been living a non Internet life for a month now. It's
> nice to check your mail and see 5k+ messages. (I also came into my
> house today after being away for ten days and found about 15 cm of
> water in my basement. It looks like it was twice as deep from the
> water stains. And I can't see where the water came from. Oh well the
> joys of home ownership.)
We don't have a basement. The house my mother lived in for 21 1/2 years
had a basement, though, and we had plenty of problems from water.
When my parents had just closed on the house, we spent 2 weekends doing
stuff at the new house -- or, rather, they did, bringing us along and
leaving us with a box of books we hadn't had access to before (how much
help is an 8-year-old going to be, anyway, and I was the older one). One
one of the trips to the new house, my sister wanted a break from the books
and went exploring in the house -- and found some water leaking into the
basement. We weren't supposed to bother our parents with trivialities, so
she got me, and once I'd had a look at the situation, decided we'd better
tell. Of course, our parents were exasperated with us at first, but
agreed to come look, and it turned out that the septic tank was backing up
a bit. They had some rubber gloves, and my mom put her hand over the leak
while the rest of us went to Montgomery Ward's and got a plastic garbage
can and some tools and cleaning stuff and brought it all back. My parents
spent a couple of hours dealing with the problem.
The septic tank backed up once more to that pipe at a later time, and at
that point there was a clothes washer draining into that pipe, and a
couple of things in the washer, which had to be disposed of and the
washing machine disinfected. (I lost a pair of pajamas on that one, but
they were getting to be a bit small on me anyway.)
The basement was naturally damp, and wasn't pitched right for water to
drain from everywhere to the sump pump in the corner, so we were always
having problems with water in certain spots, until we got a dehumidifier.
Then it was just a matter of emptying the tray on a regular basis -- until
the thing broke. I got to help my mom get it out of her car and down the
basement stairs after it was repaired (I think some large, strong man from
church had gotten it OUT of the basement and into her car in the first
place), and a dehumidifier is a fairly heavy thing, and just large enough
to make it all extremely awkward. Except for all the bits with stairs, I
ended up actually carrying it -- lift it a few centimeters, move it a half
meter or so forward, set it down (being careful not to drop it on one's
toes!), take a couple of breaths, repeat.
One consideration when we bought the house we're living in, and the land
we intend to build on in the next few years, was NOT being in a spot
likely to flood. I've had enough of water in the house to last me a few
more years.... (As long as no pipes in the house burst, we'll be fine.)
Julia
