New York Renovator

The husband woke me up at around 7:30 this morning, telling me he needed my help. The basement had flooded.

If you have followed this blog for any length of time, you’ll remember that my area has severe flooding problems. It’s actually a sharp bone of contention in my town, as many of us think that super-over-development of surrounding rural areas has created a stormwater crisis. We suffered severe floods since 2000, with 2006 and 2007 being the worst. After the kids and I dug a dry well and we installed a second pump, the basement has rarely flooded in excess of a few inches for several years. We kinda hoped our flooding days were over. During last year’s renovation, I had to store a lot of stuff in the basement (we were using our garage as a living space): power tools, wood, everything from the garage, really. So while we always checked the basement when it rained, it has been dry thus far. And I haven’t had a chance to clean the basement and put the garage back together yet (I was going to do that as soon as the weather got warmer, which, incidentally, happened yesterday).

But we have had a heck of a lot of rain this month. Last I heard, the weather guy said that out of 28 days in April, we’ve had measurable rain for 26 of them. Earlier this week, we’ve had 6 inches of rain total for April. But last night’s torrential rains upped that a bit, I’d say.

To those who knew what was happening this morning: Thank you SO SO much for praying. I know it has helped. We had a complication this time, and I was very afraid of what would happen.

Unfortunately, we had stored in our basement–a lot of stuff: old engine oil waiting to go to the hazardous waste facility; paint; tools; etc. All that was washed up in the water that came surging in through our sump well. It coated everything and made water removal impossible.

The fire department came to help, but when they saw the oil, they had to call the DEC. It was pretty scary for a while, as I envisioned tens of thousands of dollars in bills from a HAZMAT team… but after it FINALLY stopped raining, we surveyed the damage. The DEC guy said that the oil spill was not large and therefore would not require a HAZMAT team (nor expensive bills). He said we could hire a professional cleanup crew to clean this up, or I could do it myself to save money. Guess which I chose…. he gave me a run down of what to get and how to clean it up, and how to dispose of the waste…. lots to do this week!

Anyway, we still have water in the basement. We have to control it carefully as we pump it out, because we cannot allow any oil to flow into the municipal water system (and the nearby creek). As the water goes down, we are mopping up the oil with large absorbent pads. Once the water is all gone, I begin the long process of shoveling out the sediment, removing the debris, junking the debris, and washing the walls and floor. My insurance will pay for a new water heater and for my ruined tools and power saws, thank God.

The yard is a disaster, filled with several layers of thick sediment from the flood waters. My house sits at a low spot in the general area, and seems to collect all the neighboring flood waters, so we bear the brunt of the flooding. I’ve got a lot of cleanup on my hands. I’ll have to take a few days off from work and writing sensa reviews or whatever to care for this.

If you ask what we need pray for, it’s NO MORE RAIN. Please, no more rain. I know so many people have it worse off than us, so pray for them, too. God is a big God, and He cares even about my small problems.

Thanks for your support, friends. It makes things like this more bearable. God bless you.

We’ve got rain.

Rain rain rain.

I hate rain. Rain is my enemy. My property lies in a low spot, surrounded by asphalt parking lots. The water table is very high here… so when it rains, all that precipitation usually goes into my basement. I have suffered through some serious flooding here. The years 2004 through 2008 were terrible, where EVERY SINGLE TIME it rained, we got water measurable in feet in my basement. I just can’t handle the flooding. Things have improved since we rigged up a super-duper double sump-pump system with large pipes of PVC dumping water into the town basin.. and the kids and I built a French drain outside, which helped immensely. So PRAISE GOD we haven’t had such severe flooding in a while. But if the pumps are unplugged, the basement fills fast. And if we get torrential rains, like we’re getting now (2+ inches an hour, all day)…. I get nervous. Talk about how to remove dark circles under eyes– eep, you should see mine!

Everything is sopping wet. Everything rots. I am tired of all this rain! It’s December, for crying out loud! I want snow!

I do like snow. I enjoy the muffled stillness, the white nights, the cozy evenings cuddled in blankets, sipping hot tea and talking with the kids. Now that we have a better heating system, I expect the heating bills to lower, which will increase my ecstasy all the more.

But it’s raining. *sigh*

I wrote about our power outage earlier this week. Power outages are rare for my neighborhood. My block is on the same grid as much of the commercial district, so the power company has extreme measures to keep this grid up and running. However, Monday we had a severe thunderstorm and we lost power for several hours that morning. Power outages give me the willies because we have two sump pumps in our basement that absolutely MUST stay on. If they are off for more than an hour, my basement floods.

Here’s a photo of our predicament Monday, when the water started to rise from the sump well. GULP.

Thank God, the power was restored before the water got too high. We’ve seen water rise up to three feet in that basement. It’s a constant worry, and I’ve seriously considered selling the property because the flooding causes me such anxiety. I just cannot live in a house and on property that floods when we have moderate to heavy rains. We are in the process of (slowly) dealing with the problem, but a large part of the problem has to do with my property is the only greenspace in a large area of asphalt parking lots, and there has been a lot of over-development in the lands up the hill from me. My yard seems to be the depository of all the run-off water, and my lawn can only soak in so much. So we have a high water table and it seeps up through the basement.

Anyway, all is well today. But I’m off to clean the basement floor again before it starts to smell like a pond!

Grr. I don’t know what it is about winter. Our basement has been flooding again!

All summer long, the sump pump hardly went off, due to our severe shortage of rainfall. I have to say, I was so thankful for the dry summer. My basement was dry!

Now all of a sudden, ever since the first snowfall a few weeks ago, we’re dealing with water in the basement again. I woke up to find 6 inches of water this morning. My poor cat was stranded on top of a box until we rescued him.

We found out that one of our pumps had died. My husband waded in ankle-deep, freezing cold water to pull out the dead pump. Off he went to Home Depot to get a new pump.

I don’t know what it is, or why it is. I’m thinking it has more to do with run-off water than a high water table, because the precipitation hasn’t been heavy enough to warrant a a lot of underground water.

At any rate, my discouragement at seeing water in the basement again was back to an all-time high. I really don’t like living in a house that floods regularly, like this.

I’d said in an earlier post that we’d suffered a few floods here last summer. We have had flooding occur regularly on my property since 1999, but last year’s torrential rains really wiped out a lot of my gardening work.

The July 2006 Flood was especially destructive. We had 2 feet of back-up water (from our sump well) into our basement, destroying our furnace. Up to a foot of runoff water (from uphill behind and beside us and from up the street beside us) raged over my land. I managed to get a short video of the beginning of the flooding, before it got too dark for me to film any more.

Here’s a video of the backyard and vegetable garden. The tomato plants and green beans hung in there, but most of my lettuce, spinach, squash, and all of my onions were washed away.

Needless to say, all this water across my property was discouraging. Like I’d said, cultivating this land has been one very difficult job!

I am praying we have a relatively dry summer and fall. I don’t care if I have to water my garden with the hose– anything is better than flooding. Yuk.