The Excitment of Home Ownership
It's rather alarming when you go in the basement and find two weeping corners on the North wall. This was my experience today when I went downstairs to "Oh Yeah. The dehumidifier was full..." Imagine my surprise when I looked to the northeast corner and saw a piece of parge crumble off the wall and a steady stream of water rupture from it. OUTSIDE we go.
I pulled off my skirt, grabbed a rain poncho, and ran outside. Hooray! A 2+ inch deep puddle was against the house and the water was rushing out of the gutter like a white water river. O_______O I ran into the backyard and salvaged a currently "not in use" splash block to use in tandem with the one already in the lake in question. Ha ha. Surprise surprise. The ground is sloped TOWARD the house in that corner. So no manner of splash block stringing would work.
I went back in the basement.
I thought there might be some dryer hose lying around, unused, that I could use to temporarily fix the Lake Titicaca issue. No luck. BUT! I did find several pieces of GUTTER --- one open and one tube. HOORAY. I can just slide the tube over the current gutter and then use the open gutter piece to run the rest of the water away from the house. The assembly process didn't work exactly as I planned. I ended up ripping out several bricks in the "landscaping" to prop up the gutter --- existing and "new" --- in order to get a good angle of flow away from the house. I couldn't get the tube over/in the existing gutter, so I used the open piece and wedged it very sloped away from the house. Then, I bent the end into a tube and ran it into the tube gutter piece which I placed in the "parking lot" next door. The "parking lot", incidentally, has a massive lake in its center. Whoever built the "parking lot" either (1) Didn't know a damn thing about parking lots and/or (2) Didn't get permission to build a parking lot. I'm thinking it's a lottle of both. (Yes. Lottle.)
There's still water dripping in downstairs --- both corners. I now have two free splash blocks so I'm going to place one under the other puddle-creating gutter. Luckily, there's only a puddle there because the water rushing out of the gutter has created a hole. The splash block will do nicely to help keep water away.
And now that the sun is out, I must away and move some stuff around before the next HEAVY RAIN comes through in... 10 minutes? I love Rhode Island!
K.Thx.Bye.
PS: There was a slug in the basement. A SLUG. I am totally calling someone to reparge the place. TODAY!
I pulled off my skirt, grabbed a rain poncho, and ran outside. Hooray! A 2+ inch deep puddle was against the house and the water was rushing out of the gutter like a white water river. O_______O I ran into the backyard and salvaged a currently "not in use" splash block to use in tandem with the one already in the lake in question. Ha ha. Surprise surprise. The ground is sloped TOWARD the house in that corner. So no manner of splash block stringing would work.
I went back in the basement.
I thought there might be some dryer hose lying around, unused, that I could use to temporarily fix the Lake Titicaca issue. No luck. BUT! I did find several pieces of GUTTER --- one open and one tube. HOORAY. I can just slide the tube over the current gutter and then use the open gutter piece to run the rest of the water away from the house. The assembly process didn't work exactly as I planned. I ended up ripping out several bricks in the "landscaping" to prop up the gutter --- existing and "new" --- in order to get a good angle of flow away from the house. I couldn't get the tube over/in the existing gutter, so I used the open piece and wedged it very sloped away from the house. Then, I bent the end into a tube and ran it into the tube gutter piece which I placed in the "parking lot" next door. The "parking lot", incidentally, has a massive lake in its center. Whoever built the "parking lot" either (1) Didn't know a damn thing about parking lots and/or (2) Didn't get permission to build a parking lot. I'm thinking it's a lottle of both. (Yes. Lottle.)
There's still water dripping in downstairs --- both corners. I now have two free splash blocks so I'm going to place one under the other puddle-creating gutter. Luckily, there's only a puddle there because the water rushing out of the gutter has created a hole. The splash block will do nicely to help keep water away.
And now that the sun is out, I must away and move some stuff around before the next HEAVY RAIN comes through in... 10 minutes? I love Rhode Island!
K.Thx.Bye.
PS: There was a slug in the basement. A SLUG. I am totally calling someone to reparge the place. TODAY!