drainage

Well, that was … ick

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We still have the fans going in the new basement, and I wanted to check on them. Since the new blower fans are aimed at the new basement stairs, I went through the old basement, which gave me a chance to check how the floors are, with all the rain we’ve been having.

There were a few damps spots starting to show through the concrete, so I opened up the floor drain. The weeping tile under the new basement flows through there, to the septic tank, but there’s no P trap between the floor drain to the septic tank. That allows gasses to back up into the basement, unless we cover the hole with plastic, then put the drain cover over it.

I lifted that up and found the drain was full to the top! There also wasn’t any movement in the water that I could see. Clearly, it was draining at least somewhat, or it would have backed up into the basement.

Between the floor drain and the wall, there is another access to the pipe to the septic tank. The cap is highly corroded, so opening it requires loosening a pair of strap fasteners, then fighting it loose.

We have an old hose with one end cut off that we leave permanently attached to the cold water tap the washing machine used to be hooked up to, just for clearing the drains. Usually, I can just shove the hose through, all the way to the septic tank, then turn the water on to clear away any debris. This time, however, it wouldn’t go through. The other thing we keep handy for times like this is an old wire chimney sweep. One end has a brush attached, while the other has the tip bent back on itself, forming a rounded end. The wire is strong enough, while still being flexible, to punch through just about anything. I had to resort to that, to get through whatever was clogging the pipe, and then I could get the hose through, but without turning the water on, yet.

The water in the floor drain moved a bit, but did not drain.

Hmmm….

When we first discovered we had issues here, we had a plumber auger the pipes, and he pulled a matt of roots out from between the two openings. This is when we realized the weeping tile under the new basement had sand getting in, and tree roots were growing through, all the way past the floor drain. This is something else we now check regularly. Lately, I could see small roots coming through, but nothing major.

With the water not moving out of the floor drain, I reached in to pull at a few visible roots.

They just broke.

After several other attempts just lead to more breaking of roots, I took a look through the other opening. At the bottom, where the floor drain joins the main pipe, I could see a few roots. Nothing much. Still, I reached in and pulled.

And pulled.

And pulled again!

I pulled out a mat of roots, with sand stuck in them, just as big as the one the plumber pulled out, some three years ago!

It still didn’t drain much, though.

So, it was back to using the wire from the old chimney sweep some more, then trying to push the hose through.

I knew I finally succeeded when, not only did the floor drain start to empty, the septic pump turned on moments later!

Once the floor drain was done, I turned the water on and started hosing out the drain from both openings.

Hmm… I didn’t think of it until now. I should have run the hose through the other way, towards the new basement, too. That section is probably full of sand and roots. There’s nothing I can do about the roots, but I could wash away the sand, at least.

But not now.

Once everything seemed to be flowing well again, I closed up the overflow access pipe again, then covered the floor drain. After cleaning up and putting things away, though, I was left with a very wet floor!

So I went and checked on the other basement.

I think the carpet on the steps is finally dry, but I left one blower on it, just in case. I took the other one and set it up in the old basement, to dry the floor there.

I so love these new blower fans! Not only are they safer than the old blower, they are much lighter and easier to set up! Plus, they have power cords long enough that I could plug it right into the outlet, and didn’t have to use an extension cord.

We’ve made a point of clearing those drains fairly regularly, but I guess we had a recent growth spurt of roots coming through! There must be some sort of change in in the pipe between the floor drain and the overflow access, for the sand and roots to build up there, even when it seems like there are almost no roots at all when looking through the openings.

I wonder if this was the ultimate cause of our other drainage issues!

I’m glad I found the mess and cleaned things up. There is some sort of bottleneck in the pipe between the basement and the septic tank, roughly 3 or 4 feet from the overflow access, judging by how much hose it takes to hit it. Whatever it causing it feels very hard and doesn’t get any bigger, even after clearing and hosing the pipe repeatedly. The only way to know for sure what the problem is would be to send a camera though the pipe. That section of pipe is cast iron, so I can think of a few things that could be causing it.

Another reason we need to win a lottery jackpot! If, for example, that pipe needs to be replaced, we’d have to break through the concrete floor to access it. With the state of the walls in that basement, there’s a good chance it would compromise them; they are already crumbling. The weeping tile in the other basement needs to be dealt with, but that is so beyond our means to get done, I don’t want to even think about it. Then there’s all the other stuff, much of which is just getting old and worn house after decades of use.

Well, there’s only so much we can do, and there’s no point in worrying about something outside our control.

I’ll just keep telling myself that.

Meanwhile… I think it’s time for a shower, and more laundry!

Ew.

The Re-Farmer.

Water levels, on the road

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After seeing the sign the municipality put on our road, I decided to check out the status of where things are washed out.

While walking over, I was paying to much attention to the state of the road and the ditches, I completely missed the 4 sandhill cranes in a tree, until they suddenly took off, making their croaking sounds. Startled the heck out of me! :-D

Along with the sign at the intersection, they also marked off the flood zone with high visibility markers.

There was a new section, just starting to wash out.

This is the smaller washed out area – smaller, as in how deep the water was, and how much was washed away. It actually covers more area. You can see all that gravel washed into the ditch!

This is the same area, from the other side.

I didn’t try to cross the bigger washed out area; my rubber boots aren’t tall enough for that water!

You can see the clay that’s left behind, after the gravel got washed away. In some areas, I think that clay is the only thing keeping the damage down.

That’s a lot of gravel in the ditch!

Before improvements were made, when this area washed out, there would basically be a ravine, cutting through the road. Right now, if someone had a sturdy enough vehicle, one could still drive through this – so I was only a little surprised during my walk home, when I heard a vehicle coming up behind me!

I wouldn’t dare go through this with our van.

I’m seeing traffic using the main road, so hopefully that is still in good shape. Mind you, if it did wash out, it would be after the first mile, and people would have to take other roads to get around it, and I don’t know what those roads are like right now, either.

I’m quite thankful we don’t need to go anywhere. Our work is right here at home.

The rain continues to fall as I write this, though it’s so light right now, I can’t really see it. We’re supposed to get up to another centimeter of rain this evening – less than half an inch – with even less, overnight. We are on high enough ground that we should not have issues with overland flooding, but flat enough that the water is mostly just staying in place, as the soil slowly thaws out enough to actually absorb it in places. We just have to keep on top of monitoring the old basement for water.

I haven’t been online much, so I haven’t heard how things are in the south, which was expected to get hit with a lot more rain. The city was bracing for more flooding. South of the city is a flood plain, with a lot of small towns dotting it. Many of them have dikes around them, and houses built outside of towns are supposed to be built at a minimum height above grade, because of the regular flooding, but there comes a point where even those measures just aren’t enough. My brother built a dike around his house near the city (but not on the flood plain) and for now, things are under control there. He was even able to pick up a pair of new pumps, on sale, even!, to help drain any water inside the dike faster. The dike has a one way culvert to drain water from the inside of the dike, but sometimes it needs a little extra help, and this was one of those times. It took him years to slowly build up his flood control measures, and all that work is paying off very well right now.

The Colorado Low is still sweeping its way across parts of US and Canada. We are still expecting more rain, but not anything usually severe. There’s still the possibility of mixed rain and snow by tomorrow morning. Then things are supposed to warm right up. If things stay as predicted, farmers will soon be able to start seeding their fields, right on “schedule” (at least for our area), and it’ll be the first spring with adequate moisture in years.

The Re-Farmer

This is getting crazy!

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Last night the forecasts had changed, saying that we wouldn’t get much accumulation of snow, as it would melt on contact.

Well, that didn’t last long.

I made sure to top up the trays in the kibble house, late last night, because I knew they’d be extra hungry. It was raining fairly heavily, and the kibble tray on the ground was full of water, as the one under the shrine would have been. I’m so glad we built that kibble house, so the cats could have a dry, sheltered place to eat!

The trays were completely empty by morning, of course. Not a lot of cats were about, and I noticed several coming out of the cat shelter.

By the time I was done putting warm water out for them, Potato Beetle had emerged from somewhere. He ate a little – then followed me into the sun room.

He’s still there.

:-D

We will have more shoveling to do, I think.

This is how things look all over the place; that slushy layer of snow built up on all the standing water.

We’re still getting rainfall alerts, though.

Rain with isolated thunderstorms continues this morning. However, a strengthening northerly wind will bring falling temperatures today. The rain will turn to snow this morning and then taper off this afternoon or evening as the Colorado Low departs the area.

Wind gusts of 70 to 80 km/h will also weaken this evening. Only minor accumulations of up to 5 cm are expected as much of the snow will melt on contact with the ground.

This much precipitation over frozen or saturated ground may lead to localized flooding including basements, underpasses, and the like. For larger scale overland flooding risks, please consult the provincial flood forecast.

I don’t know that we got any thunderstorms in our area last night, but before I went to bed, I was reading about the different areas with flooding and power outages. Thousands of households were affected by outages, mostly in the south east corner of our province, but also a few not all that far away from us.

In our case, I am actually happier with the snow instead of the rain. The ceiling in the sun room has stopped dripping, and this is what our basement looked like this morning.

Which is not too bad at all. In fact, I’d say it was better than when I last checked it at about 1:30am. My daughters checked it some time after that, too. Because of how lumpy-bumpy and uneven the concrete floor is, we sweep the standing water into the drain. There are those two drains chipped into the concrete that are helping, and there is a steady stream of water flowing through them, but water still puddles.

The drain for the weeping tile goes through here and into the septic tank, and there is enough water draining that the septic pump is triggered quite often. Our septic system is basically our sump pump right now. On the one hand, that’s a lot of wear and tear on the pump that I’d rather not have. On the other, this is pumping the excess water well away from the house, and into a low area out by the barn, rather than by the house.

My daughter shocked the hot water tank with hydrogen peroxide last night, which means it got partially drained into the sump pump reservoir. I checked the level, and it’s looking just fine. On that side of the basement, the only place I’m seeing water seeping through the concrete is a tiny patch near the furnaces, where there is a new layer of concrete on top of old, and the edges are broken up.

Right now, we are hovering around the freezing mark, and the high of the day being forecast on my desktop app is now a bit colder. Tomorrow was supposed to have a high of -5C/23F. Now they’re saying tomorrow’s high will be -3C/27F – then in just 3 days, we’re supposed to reach a high of 11C/52F! It’s supposed to drop down again to 6C/41F the next day. The 14 day trend shows our highs slowly warming back up until reaching 11C/52F again by May 5, and then just staying there. Of course, the app on my tells me something different, so we’ll see which one is the most accurate.

Interestingly, while on Facebook yesterday, I got one of those reminders of things posted on that day, years ago. This time, it was a photo I posted 14 years ago. We were still living in an apartment building at the time, and my daughter was in the lounge, standing on a chair by the window, trying to see over the snow drifted against it.

Mind you, in that city, it was not unusual get snow any month of the year, or have green grass in the middle of winter. Mountains on one side, and open prairies on the other, makes for some pretty dramatic weather changes in very short time frames. We’re actually a bit more south now, compared to the city we lived in before moving here, but here we are surrounded by lakes. It makes for some pretty significant differences.

Well, it is what it is. For now, we’ll keep monitoring the basement, and think warm thoughts.

Excuse me while I have another mug of Rooiboos tea!

The Re-Farmer

addendum: just as I was finishing up this post, I paused to pop outside and give the cats a treat – and had to chase 2 deer away from the kibble house! Then I got a call from my brother, following up the email I sent last night, about how things are going here. Their sump pump is going off every 15 minutes or so, but they also have a sump pump they set up outside, to pump water to the other side of their dike. It broke down. He’s been trying to find one, but the entire city is sold out of sump pumps. They’ll be okay for now, and he does have a spare pump he can rig up to use instead. It does remind me that I had been looking at getting a spare sump pump to have, just in case. It’s not like we can pop over to a store if ours breaks down. I think a spare septic pump would be a good idea, too. That’s something I’d have to talk to my brother about, to make sure I get the right one for our system.

All in all, we’re doing all right. I know other areas are not so fortunate, so I am thankful.

Drained

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Well, I can at least say that we can now use our plumbing again.

For now.

The septic guy made it over in the late morning. The septic tank was, indeed, very full. When he had emptied it, however, nothing started to drain in the basement, so that – thankfully – ruled out the notion that the clog was due to fluids actually backing up from the tank, into the basement. That could have caused all sorts of problems with our type of system.

Also, when I called for him to come over, I asked what the rates were. They did, of course, go up a bit from when we had the tank emptied in the spring. I made sure to give him a tip, too. If anyone deserves a tip, it’s the septic guy!!!

Once that was done, I quickly grabbed lunch, then headed to the basement. Having helped my brother the last time this happened, I could go straight to where I figured the source of the problem was.

Which is when I had my first problem. I needed to get the cap off this access pipe, but my pipe wrench had disappeared. It should have been on the hot water tank, but I had the vaguest memory of taking it to use somewhere else. Too vague of a memory. I had no idea where it might have been.

While cleaning out the new part basement, we did find a couple of large pipe wrenches, so I decided to try one of those. I grabbed the smaller one, but it turned out to be broken, so I went back to try the bigger one.

Now, situations like this are among the reasons I’m glad we have the opening between the two basements blocked off, keeping the cats out. The mess was bad enough on its own. The mess with cats running through it, then tracking it through the house, is a whole different level of horrific. Unfortunately, it also meant that, to get something that is in the new basement, I had to go back up the stairs to the main floor, go down the other stairs to the new basement, then back up to the main floor, then back down to the old basement.

I don’t do stairs well at the best of times. Having to go up and down the old basement stairs, with its odd dimensions, was not a good thing. But, it had to be done.

So after a few precarious trips with me hobbling up and down the stairs repeatedly, I tried the big pipe wrench. That thing probably weighs about 10 pounds. Thankfully, it was not broken, but I still couldn’t get the cap off. Instead, the entire piece was turning. I realized I would have to take the entire top piece off, and that required loosening the bands holding what appeared to be a rubber seal in place.

That required tools I didn’t have.

At that point, I just hobbled half way up the stairs and called for my husband to bring me the big tool kit Finally, I was able to get the whole piece off the top of the pipe. And no wonder I couldn’t get it off! I knew the metal was rusting away pretty badly, from that last time we had to do this, but my brother did clean it up as best he could. About the only positive thing I could say is that, this time, there wasn’t any actual pieces of rusted out metal that had fallen off, for me to clean up.

I did take a picture, but it is too disgusting to share.

I then brought out the old chimney sweep that my brother and I had found was the only thing that really worked to break through the clogged pipe, last time. The end without the brush could be jammed through, and it’s long enough to reach all the way into the tank. I started to push it through, and barely got more than 10 inches before it was blocked.

I then spent the next… *checks the time* … two hours or so, trying to jam that thing through. I also had an old garden hose we’d used last time, too. It only has a female coupling on it, which works out quite well for a job like this. I could hook it up to the cold water tap that the washing mashing used to be hooked up to – I couldn’t use the taps at the laundry sink, since it was completely full of water… and… stuff. Very happy for the tap redundancy in this basement! Between the wire and the hose, I was eventually able to break through the clog. I knew I finally got it when the laundry sink suddenly started to drain! :-D

I then moved to the floor drain to work on for a bit. I had already had an idea of the cause of the problem, but here, it was confirmed.

There were roots running across the drain from the weeping tile under the new basement, all the way through to the access pipe to the septic tank.

I broke up and tore out as much as I could, but I just don’t have the equipment to do more. We do have a rotary drain snake, and I was able to use that to pull out quite a bit, but it’s just too small to clear the pipes.

Still, I got it to the point where water was flowing freely again, and I could start sweeping the water on the floor, and sweeping up… debris… for the garbage. I got most of it cleared, but not all. Once everything was flowing again, I made sure the dehumidifier that drains directly into the sump pump reservoir was set to maximum, then set the big blower fan up to face the worst of the wet and plugged that in.

Once everything is dry, we’ll be able to clean up the last of the mess and disinfect the floor.

It’s a good thing this is NOT a finished basement! I am also very happy that I made sure everything that we do have down there is up on bricks, not directly on the floor.

As disgusting and messy as the job was, it could have been much worse. Most of what backed up was from a load of laundry. It could have been much, much more disgusting, that’s for sure! Still, when it was done, I was so incredibly glad to be able to take a shower!

We will still need to call someone in to clear the pipes of those roots. Otherwise, we’ll be doing this again before too long. :-( It could probably wait until spring, though, since the trees are going dormant and there will not be new root growth for a while. We won’t be able to get all the weeping tile done, but if we can just clear the pipes that are in the old basement, that would make a big difference.

The main thing is, things are now draining.

And I am drained!

The Re-Farmer

Drainage

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After all the snowmelt yesterday, we had ourselves a few skating rinks around the yard! The ice wasn’t quite thick enough to hold my weight as I did my rounds.

Boy am I glad I found those rubber boots. Even if I had to cut the tops. Wider would have been nice, too, but at a size 12 men’s, I could at least get my feet in them. :-D

So, there is definitely a reason the south fence posts are not doing very well.

When we first tried moving on the driveway side of this fence, there was a really rough area along the fence line that we couldn’t use the riding mower on without risking damage (now that we’ve got a working push mower, I should be able to get in there). When I asked my brother about it, he said it was a drainage ditch.

Hhhmm. It looks like someone took a tiller along the fence line. Not much of a ditch at all.

At the end of the fence, there is an actual trench leading to the ditch along the road; deep enough that I’ve had to make a “bridge” to cross it with the riding mower when I used it to drag the top of a tree away.

The posts in the south fence are all rotting on the bottom, and some are only being held up by the barbed wire they are supposed to be holding. Even the ones that are still holding out, I could probably break them out of the ground easily.

What we’ll have to decide on is whether or not we should dig a better drainage ditch along this fence. I want to get rid of it completely, but we might not do that for some time. At the very least, I’ll probably take out the two bottom strands of barbed wire, so I can duck through the fence more easily, but the top one is holding the power cable. Having an outlet on the east fence is very useful, and not just for the lights. I’d like to bury the line instead but, as you can see, if I bury it along the current fence line, it’ll end up having water over it. Yeah, I’d make sure to run it through protective tubing, but still… water and electricity don’t mix! Plus, we might decide to run it through a different location, instead, so I don’t want to do anything as relatively permanent as burying it just yet.

Today is supposed to be another warm one. At this rate, I’ll be able to start accessing the barn easily in just a day or two. That will be a big help in getting the new part basement cleared out of stuff!

Looking forward to it. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Wet morning rounds

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We had quite a bit of rain, overnight, which made for some lovely fog this morning – and lots of water and mud to slog through!

20190407.morning.fog.rain.spruces

When putting out feed for the deer, some of the usual spots I leave feed are all water right now, so I had to change that up a bit.

I wonder if our little buck will come over and splash in the puddle again? :-D

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