Monday, April 11, 2011

Why Monday, Why?

Good day, dear reader

On Monday April 4th, I worked.  It was a normal day.  It was a normal Monday.  I was tired, I was grouchy, not much went right at work....it was Monday.  Finally, my work day ended.  I breathed a sigh of relief, packed up my laptop, and walked out of the school I was working it.  It was home time.  True, I had a bit of a drive to get home, but usually it is not horrible.  This day proved not much different.  I got home at the normal time.  As I pulled into my garage, I became a little less grouchy....I only hoped the kids were happy and that my wife was happy.  One is never too sure on a Monday.  For those of you who have followed my blog(s) for the past couple years, you will know that Mondays and I do NOT get along.  No, dear reader, Monday's don't like me and I don't like Mondays.  And so I invite you to read on....learn what Monday did to me this time.

By this time, dear reader, I am walking up my back sidewalk towards my house.  I skirt around the water, and open my door.  Immediately as I walk into my house, I see the lights on downstairs.  Naturally, I look.  Normally I see my deepfreezes, the floor tile and maybe a toy or two.  But no....this time I saw Monday.  In all it's devious glory, I saw Monday.  It laughed.  It chortled.  Monday had the d**m gall to guffaw at me.  And it reared its ugly head in the form of water.  Oh, it was not so cruel this time as to be sewer water, but nevertheless it was water.  The water was being held at bay by towels, but even that was becoming futile.  My poor wife could not keep up with the onslaught.  Every towel we owned was wet.  And Monday kept happening.

I took stock of the situation, and immediately decided that I should get the power bar that my freezers were plugged into out of the water.  One crisis averted.  Then I quickly surveyed the situation, and found where the water was coming in...a spot right at the footing.  Then I decided that towels alone would not help and we needed mechanical assistance....I went to my garage and got my wet/dry vac.  And with that, we managed to get the standing water out of the area, and we could concentrate on the entry point.  We didn't lose anything in the basement except some drywall and floor tile....no big deal.  We are very fortunate.  It could have been worse.

I cannot remember all the details of the rest of that day exactly.  I do know that my kids ended up doing a lot of their own supper.  I do know that Dianne made a lot of phone calls trying to get someone to come and fix the problem.  15 calls, 2 people responded.  We managed to get someone booked for Tuesday and for Wednesday to assess the damage.  But, this still left us with the issue of the water pouring into the house.  No, Monday was not over yet.  Not even close.

After we got the inside water under control (sort of), I left Dianne downstairs to keep up with it, and I went outside to see what could be done.  Do you remember, dear reader, at the beginning of my article where I described 'skirting around the water'?  Well, that skirting around turned into wading through.  Even though we had moved snow away from the house all winter, it was still a problem.  I dug a couple small trenches and resevoirs so that the water would flow away from the house, but I couldn't go very far due to the sheer amount of snow piled up in the back yard.  My cousin Sheldon and his son Connor came over and we moved snow...and water.  We found that once we got the outside water under control, it was not going inside near as quick.  Thus the plan became this:  keep the water level outside at an acceptable level, and inside will be good.  Sounds easy, right?  Um, not so much.

I won't bore you with too many more details, dear reader.  Suffice it to say that Dianne and I put in an awful lot of hours keeping the water away from the house.  Turns out that our foundation is cracked....a 7 foot long crack.  We hired a guy to fix it, and included with the job is installing a sump pump, weeping tile, window wells and adjusting the grade slightly.  We will be re-designing the backyard, and spending a lot of time doing it.  At least my house is dry again.  There is much more I could write, but I won't.  After all, it's Monday....and I don't like Mondays.

Cheers,

FF

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