What's up today (bullchiting) thread.

My kids were off today too. We went skiing at the local ski area. My 9 year old daughter is now skiing better than my 11 yr old son. She was lapping him every run, getting two in before he got to the bottom. Fortunately she didn't rub it in his face. Time for another lesson for them. I know how to ski but I don't know how to teach a beginner.

 

Mine learned to ski on their own. The boys hit big slopes, not to my liking. Lost all interest in, but I did take them up so they could have a chance. I liked cross country skiing but that wasn't fast enough for them. The important thing is going and supporting them.

 

Basement is leaking like a mofo. Never leaked before.... too much snow and rain on frozen ground.

 

Ugh. That is not good. Any significant water or just getting a little here or there?

 

Only a couple inches. Ugh is right.

 

It's a slushsicle outside. Hope the city plies before it all freezes or no one will be going anywhere.

 

UGH. Sorry to here that. That is a lot of water in the basement.

 

That Sucks big time. I got flooded that way in my old house. rain on snow. Came right in the walk out door. I learned to trench out the snow so the water could run off and away from the house.

 

I'll be trenching a swail this spring. Snow gone now but strong t storm bearing down now. Never ends.

 

I need to dig out the end of a drain tile that comes out at the top of the ground and make sure it will drain. I think I will take the Pick Axe to the layer of ice under the snow and try to clear everything away from it.

 

Good luck with your basement. Hope you're able to get it pumped/cleaned out without too much of a hassle. Not fun…

 

Got everything dry now. Long night.

 

So here's the whole story. My wife called me yesterday at work around noon and said water was pouring in the basement. I headed home and found that it was coming out of a long cut-off pipe from the pool that was here years ago (the pump and filter were in the basement). It was literally pouring out like a garden hose. I took a scrap piece of dowell rod and plugged the leak and shop vac'd all the water which was confined to a small area of the basement. No big deal.

About 20 minutes later I went back down to check everything out and the basement shower drain was black-flowing...hard. Hard enough that there was a 2" rise of water coming out of the drain and the basement was filling up fast in that area.

I looked out the window and the whole back yard was draining into my septic lift tank and the pump that lifts to the finger system couldn't keep up. I put the snow blade on the quad and started plowing the water away from the tank (which worked surprisingly well). I build a small dam to divert the water away from the tank and the pump quickly caught up.

This spring I'm going to cut a ditch in front of the tank to divert water away from the tank so this doesn't happen again.

Thankfully there was no real damage. The floor is going to need a new coat of wax but that's about it. Water had been draining into the lift tank long enough that is was basically rain water too...not septic gray water. Could have been a lot worse....and a VERY good thing that the small leak happened first and I was home to take care of the big one. If I wasn't there it would have been a disaster.

 

Good thing you were there…. don't need no stinkin disasters…

When my wife and I were just married (ah, those were the days…) we rented a house. We had snow piled up all around the house from our landlord plowing. Then… hot water Feb rain… ugh. Heard "splashing" sound from the basement at 2 AM, and went down to check it out. The splashing sound was 6-8 streams of water blasting through cracks in the concrete block foundation, falling on a foot of water already over the floor. The rain couldn't get out of the "pond" the snow piles made, and was forced through the wall. Only "good" news was the landlord was a city employee and had a bucket loader there within a half hour (at about 2:30 AM) and pushed open one of the lower piles of snow… whoosh, it was all gone. Not quite in the basement though. Ruined everything we had stored in the basement… have I mentioned how much I hate winter hot water rain?

 

Yes, the Snow acts just like soil as far as grading and drainage goes. Although coming back through the septic isn't something that I would have thought of.

 

And that situation right there is why the guy that built this place had the entire lot arrangement changed around from what the land owners wanted and the septic system engineers planned for, there was no way he was going to commit to a build if a sewage lift pump was involved. He was a firm believer in my favorite system of building, the KISS system. Since water likes to flow downhill all water exits must be going downhill from the house and at no time going uphill.

 

I wish i didn't have one. But I do. Not worth replacing the system over, but if I do it will be gone.