Day 62 - Wet Again
When we realized we had a flooded barn, I joked that at least it wasn't the house.
Oops.
Soon, it was the house and the results weren’t funny at all.
Torrential rain helped us realize the barn wasn’t the only place that flooded. We were fortunate that the wet basement was isolated to one corner, but of course, that was the corner that was carpeted. After renting a Rug Doctor and finding it was insufficient, we had the basement professionally cleaned.
And then it happened again.
Cleaning the carpet was a necessary step, but getting at the root of the problem was essential to making sure we weren't dealing with a wet basement every time it seriously rained.
Our worst fear was that this was a foundation issue. Fortunately, after having an expert take a look, we were relieved that not only was this not a foundation issue, the fix was rather simple and inexpensive.
When we bought the property, one of the highlights the owner was extremely proud of was the fact that the downspouts were connected to an underground system of pipes that were meant to filter water far away from the house. We could see where the downspouts went into the ground but we weren't sure where they went once they disappeared below the surface.
Well, it looked like one of the downspouts in this system failed.
To test it out, I placed a hose in the spout and put it on blast. The foundation expert said that after two hours, water wasn’t backing up, this wasn’t the issue. After about an hour, I found out it was. Somewhere in the underground system, there was a blockage. When tested with too much water, the water backed up and found its way into the basement.
With a specialized camera borrowed from a plumber, we found a blockage about a hundred feet away from the house. Because the pipe used was corrugated and plastic rather than PVC, the only way to fix this system was to dig up and replace it.
We chose to use a regular drainage tube above ground.
We needed the money and energy for other things, including a squeaky surprise.
