Need motivation? Get "LOGANED" - Page 28

OK, I'm back, I'm caught up at work, and ready to go.

It's September...Back To Theater Time! It's that time of year when everyone gets all excited and buys a bunch of shiny new crap they don't really need and makes plans about how great and different THIS year will be. I can hear it now...THIS year I WON'T be a nerd...THIS year I'll hang out with the cool kids...THIS year I'll hang a projector, just to measure screen size.

Yeah, right.

Looks like some of us have grajimitated (sorry, I went to the same HS as Big) and others have been left behind (sitting on their big fat lazy behinds). Others are still at home crying for Mommy. Some seem to have just plain dropped out. Looks like a few even went to summer school and actually caught up to grade level.

Playtime is OVER kiddies. BACK TO WORK. I don't care if it IS the first week of school. Not only is there homework everynight, but weekends, too. ESPECIALLY weekends. And I'm not talking about "check-the-box-with-the-C-A-T-in-it" type homework. I'm talking the "DO-IT-YOURSELF-and-show-your-work" homework. You're NOT going to get any help from Mommy or Daddy with THIS homework.

Oh, there WILL be a test. A test of your manhood (and I use that term loosely). Now, who's ready to step up? HUH? Who wants that piece of me? Yeah, YOU! I'm talking to YOU. I'm ready. Come on you losers.

I'm hoping to. I'm expecting to drywall by the end of the year (2008, for all you wise guys out there. I know what you're thinking). Maybe not the finishing, but the drywall up.

There. I've said it. Now who else has a plan?

That would work for me. BTW - How's that backyard still comming along? I want to see some pictures.

Hey, YOU! Javadoc. Yeah, I'm talking to YOU. You want a piece o' me? Don't go sticking your big fat nose in here and be calling me and my buddies sissies without the guts (that's the nice word for it) to stand up and take it like a MAN.

Your plans mean nothing to me. Nothing but a lot of hot air. And it must be that extra thin Colorado air. It affects your brain. AND your "manhood." You gonna crawl back under that rock or you gonna stand up like a man? Huh, which is it?

You know where to find me.

In the form of Hanna. Yes, it's happened. The dreaded basement flood. At least 2 inches of water above the Dricore, throughout the entire basement.

Saturday, I was running some wiring. I need to extend the two circuits for equipment in the front of the room to the new location in the back of the room. I had 100' roll of 12/2. Of course, I needed 60' per run. So, in the meantime, I make three runs of coax to the side wall plate (to make my own component cable - I have about 1000' I got for free so I thought I should use it). By the time I got that done it was getting to lunchtime and my wife had gone out to run some errands while it wasn't raining as hard as they were predicting. So I have to make a trip to HD for ANOTHER 100' (and yes, in hindsight I should have just had them run me 60' off the big roll) and pick up something for lunch.

I CHECKED THE WALKOUT WELL BEFORE I LEFT and there was 1/2" MAYBE 1" of water in there. It's about 6" inches deep. I cleared the drain "just in case." So as I pull out of the driveway, it hits full force. I run to HD, then drivethru for fast food on the way home. Get home and eat. About 10 minutes after that, my wife gets home. I sit for another 15 minutes or so. Make plans to meet my brother in Baltimore for dinner.

I head back downstairs, a total 90 minutes MAX has passed, and I've got a wading pool down there. Sump pump failed. My son was home, so we got him and started bailing. WE COULD NOT KEEP UP. I figured if we at least got below the level of the door, we could start getting water out of the basement. As soon as we got it below the door, got inside to start bailing, it was back up outside. I had a small shop vac and we got that going, but it was really of little help.

I had my wife call a neighbor up the street that does handyman services to see if he had a pump. Or at least a bigger shop vac. Yes! He does. Says he'll bring it down. Five minutes later, the power goes out. We call back on the cell to se if he has a generator. No, but he'll bring down the pump anyway. He shows up with TWO pumps modified to stay on and adapted for a garden hose. Meantime, we're still trying to bail. 20 minutes later, power come back on. We get the pumps going. AND start using the 16 gal vac. Takes about 30 seconds to fill, but is too heavy to get up the stairs to dump, so we have to bail a couple of buckets out each time to get it light enough to carry.

We get the water low enough that he volunteers to put in a new sump pump. He sends HIS wife to HD, who picks up the last 1/3 HP pump, and because the box was open and it was on the floor, she picks up one the few remaining 1/4 HPs, too, just in case. She also knows exactly which fittings to get and what a check valve is. No wonder he married her.

We get the pump going and that baby starts water flowing through the 1.5" PVC at full force. I look outside and the PVC comes out of the house above ground, runs down the side of the house and terminates in a 90 degree elbow. LOVELY. BUT...due my procrastination in returning a 10' section of 1.5" PVC, I can extend the drain! But my stairwell is longer than 10'. So my neighbor uses the rest of the 5' piece he used installing the pump and we get it past the stairwell.

About 30 minutes later the water is gone. Pump ran for another good 30 minutes at full force. After that, on and off, as it should.

...to be continued, next post.

So, the water was in there for a total of, maybe, 3 hours. When I first got down there, got my shoes off, and starting walking, the Dricore was actually floating. Hence a "floating" subfloor.

We called a few other neighbors, got as many fans going as we could down there. Dricore settled down. Surveyed the damage. Got up what we could. We were exhausted. And my back was killing me by then. Wife put in an insurance claim.

Sunday we went down to get out as much as we could and get a better sense of the damage.

WE ARE LUCKY.

The vast majority of the damage is to the boxes that things were stored in. So far, all that we lost is a print from the music festival in the town my wife is from. She has been collecting them yearly. She thinks she can replace it. I lost the bottom row of a box of books, with mostly sentimental value. We had a box of albums (for you young folks, that's an old fashsioned iPod) that got wet, but again not that big of a deal. Most of the other prints were in frames and wrapped in towels, and many of the other things in boxes were inside plastic bags. A few of the mat boards were wet, but we think in pretty good shape.

I had a couple of carpet remnants rolled up and standing up that I planned to put on the storage room floor once I got the rest of the shelves built, so we just tossed those. A few sheets of drywall I had planned to put behind the shelves I hadn't built yet got one edge wet. I can probably save those.

Worked most of the day. We now have a pile about three feet high and four feet wide of wet boxes and junk out on the top of the stairs. We really don't think we lost anything of value, except....

The box for the Denon 3806 got wet. BUT the actual unit is upstairs. So it was just the box.

What I think I lost is a set of Lionel trains from my Aunt. In orginal boxes. Even the outer box it was originally sold in, just plain carboard inked "Lionel Trains" a model number and "39.95." All the oirignal orange boxes the trains came in. The working cattle car, AND milk car, too. The instruction manual is copyrighted 1953. Anyway, we're trying to dry them out.

So far, the Dricore SEEMS OK. I'm sure we won't know for a couple of days at least.

AND, no one got hurt.

I am positive that this is soley the result of the failed sump pump and not any drainage issues. The house actually sits up and all four sides slope away from the house. Once the sump pump got going, the water drained very rapidily.

We have NEVER had any other water issues. Once right after I put down the dricore, it came close, but the drain was blocked, Once I cleared it, it drained fast. AND I TESTED THE SUMP PUMP LAST FEBRUARY. I had moved and rewired the box it plugs into for my electric rough-in. So I tested it after that to make SURE it worked. It failed sometime between then and now. I didn't notice anything amiss because in the five years we've been there, it has only run a few times, anyway. And even then it's usually AFTER the rain when the water has time to seep under the house and into the pit.

The bottom plates and studs appear to be drying out OK. So, we'll just have to wait and see if I'm replacing the dricore.

Appreciate all the thoughts.

I won't know for a couple of days how the Dricore holds up. I DID build on top, but I haven't tacked it down yet, so I'm pretty confident that IF I have to replace it, it can be done realtively easily. Still a PIA, but can be done.

I DEFINITELY plan to come up with a backup plan.

Took a bunch of pics, will try to upload some tonight.

Cathan - I actually wanted to come by last week, but with the last minte trip to the beach and not getting back until late Tuesday, I had a pretty busy work-week. What's a good day this week?