A little rain

Darren Wright

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Springfield, Missouri
When will it ever stop? Seems like it's been going for weeks now. I heard a humming noise I hadn't heard before this morning, so went to investigate. I found our second sump pump humming away and the water level in the pit wasn't dropping. So I went to investigate outside, but sure enough water was coming out. Unfortunately the pipe separated above the ground where it feeds into some drains we have running around the house to the ditch by the street.
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I had about 3" of standing water sitting against the foundation.
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I was running late for work, but quickly grabbed my shop vac hoses and connected them to get the water away from the foundation. Though some of that was probably seeping right back down into the pit, I think our water table is just up right now and can expect to hear that running for a few days. The other one in our crawlspace has also been cycling about every 5 minutes for a few days now.
 
Ugh!! Our pump has been getting a workout too...I have it hosed out to the back yard and it's creating a mini lake, but better there than in the basement. I rented a place where that happened at once. Called the landlord and told him I could fix it with a new elbow...would do it for free too. He said not to touch it and was out of town so he called somebody to do it. They told me they were going to bill him for $200!! That landlord wasn't the smartest guy...
 
Yeah, this is literally the first time I've ever heard that pump kick on in the three years we've been there. I've lifted the float a couple of times just to make sure it was working and it's kicked on each time.

The odd thing I finally had a DUH moment with this morning is regarding the pit the sump sits in. Rather than a round sump hole, it was a galvanized piece of duct work that was between the furnace and hot water heater. I thought that maybe they were trying to save space. Well when they build the house, the builder/owner buried air ducts under the concrete out to the sun room. I'm sure that caused a lot of mold issues or it finally collapsed and they replace it with some overhead ducts along the ceiling. Needing a sump added, the previous owner knocked out the bottom of the duct and added the sump, using that duct as a pit. :rolleyes:
 
Sheesh! Midwestern people problems. :rolleyes:

Don't have that issue here.

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:rofl:
 
That's on the other side of the Continental Divide from here. We've got this drainage ditch instead, though...

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It's interesting, though. Out here, houses with basements are few and far between, yet in other parts of the country with considerably higher water tables, nearly every house has one. :huh:
 
Speaking of drainage ditches. I didn't notice it when I left Friday morning, but when I came home it looked like my drain culvert had grown about 10" or so. Coming back from getting the mail I could see that we had a small river running across the driveway. That just baffles my mind as the hill running down to our side would have only caught rain from a few driveways before reaching ours. Probably was a hard enough rain to wash off the yards too.

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I have some gravel to reclaim from the opposite side.
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Also some repair work to do around the retaining wall on that side. I had just told my wife I was thinking I needed to add a spillway on that side to keep this from happening.
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