Sunday, June 21, 2009

I thought I loved the rain

I was so happy to see it pour rain today. This is our first day of rain since last year I think. We have had bits of rain, and cloudy days, but no days of nearly nonstop rain. I was so happy to sit inside and watch it pour and see how extra green all my shrubs were looking. At one point the dog asked to go out for a pee. She is not too keen on going out by herself in the rain, so I told her she would have until the rain slowed down a bit. At this point it was raining sheets and I could hardly see the house behind ours through the rain. Finally it did slow down so I took her out.

For some odd reason I decided to look beside our house, I don't usually when I take the dog out. The first thing I noticed was that our window well was at least half or more full of water. Crap. So I took the dog for a pee, then came back inside and trudged down to the basement. The bedroom, who's window is in that window well, carpet was soaked about half way across the room (and under the wall into the adjoining room). Crap. I looked up and water was at least half way up the window. Unfortunately windows are not water tight. Crap. So I went and told Jay who was laying down for a rest. Then I headed outside to start bailing water. I probably pulled at least 10 or 12 buckets of water out of the window well before it was only about an inch or inch and a half full and I was confident it would drain the rest out on it's own. Then I went downstairs and got the shop vac and realized the only attachment we have for it is a one inch pipe. So I set do vacuuming half of the bedroom (thankfully there is no bed in that room, just boxes and a few chairs).

I decided to call mom and dad to see if they had either another shop vac, or better attachments and dad figured he did, so they came over to help. We took turns vacuuming, though mom did a good portion of it. When I had gone out to bail the water I determined that a good part of the problem with why there was so much water in the window well was the fact that there is a downspout a couple of feet away from the window well, and it had rained so much, so fast that all the water ran down into the window well. There is also a problem with the grade of the lot right there. The window well is the low point. I am hoping that when we finally get a chance to talk to the landscapers that they will be willing to fix that.

While mom was vacuuming, dad and I ran over to Home Depot before they closed to get an extension hose for the downspout. We found one that works well enough, but it wasn't quite as long as I was hoping we might find. Dad went out there during the last downpour though, to see if the water was draining the right way, and he said it appears to be. However with the poor grade near the window well, when we get a huge downpour that the eaves cannot handle, if the water runs over it will run down into the window well. I hope that we will not get too many downpours of that level before we can get the grade sorted out.

All that I have to say was that I felt tired before this all started. Now I feel physically tired from the vacuuming and bailing water. I feel emotionally tired from being frustrated/upset about this whole thing. I think that I will sleep well tonight. Well unless it rains hard, then I will be paranoid all night that the basement is filling with water.

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