Carp! Just what you needed. I feel your pain, my Garage floods when it rains alot. UnFortunately, we are in a draught.

Hope your weekend improves.

Gayle

((((((Anne))))))

Linda

Two suggestions:

Get to Lowe's or Home Depot or a hardware store and buy a geyser pump. It's a little portable pump, you attach a garden hose to it, and run it out to the street (or illegally into your wash tray). It can pump in as little as a 1/4" of water. and will get your basement empty for you. They're inexpensive--in the $100 range, I believe. If you have a basement that floods, you really should have one on hand for future emergencies. We've got 2--and they're all we need when the basement gets water in it (maybe once or twice a year)

Or:

If you can't get your hands on a portable pump (they may be sold out), did you try calling the fire department? They will usually come and pump out a basement, if they have the time--and with their powerful pumps it won't take long.

good luck. Hope you get it all sorted out quickly and are back in business soon.

What a day!

Just after I posted my first post I saw my friend Dale across the street come home from taking the dog for a walk. If anyone knows anything about basement flooding it is Dale because his has flooded many times. He has 3 sump pumps taking water out of the house all the time. I waited until I saw him because he is a policeman and I knew he worked late last night so I didn't want to bother him earlier in case he was sleeping. As soon as I told him about the basement he said "let me get my pump"

He got a lot of the water out of the one room and even though there was still water on that side he moved into the laundry room because that is where the water was coming in. I had a foot of water. The pump worked good for a while. Dale left me with the pumt and said he was taking his family to the show but thought maybe he should wait. I told him to go. He said once the water gets lower to use a broom to push it to the pump which I did for hours but it wasn't doing a whole lot.

Neighbour Cheryl came over and asked if she could help and I told her I was okay. She came over after an 1 1/2 of me sweeping and said she would help because she had rubber boots. I was wearing my winter boots but standing on a piece of rug and a hose that was keeping me feet dry. I gave in and gave Cheryl the broom and I used a sponge mop to move the water towards the pump.

Three hours later Dale came home and just about scared us to death when he said something through the basement window. LOL He came downstairs and said we moved a lot of water but he said maybe the pump wasn't low enough so he took off the storm drain grate and put the pump in there. In no time the laundry room was almost free of water.

Dale went on the other side of the basement and using my plastic snow shovel pushed the rest of the water into the laundry room. I was pleased at how much water we rmoved.

Dale left the pump because he said with the amount of water in the ground some of it was going to come back into the house and right away it started too.

I told him to go home. By this time my boots were water logged. Yuck. Cheryl helped me clean out some plastic dishes from one of the metal cupboards that I am getting rid of and I still have lots of china and crystal pieces to pack up. I tossed all the plastic because it has been in the baesment for a long time and I am sure it has absorbed the smell of the basement.

Earlier I had asked Dale if he knew anyone that wanted metal for scrap and he said his brother would come and take it so he called him and told him what I had. I have the 2 metal cupboards, a fridge door, an old steel lawn mower, lots of chains and metal things under my dads workbench that are in metal pails. I even have an 8 foot length of copper pipe. All kinds of other things too.

Dale said since I am giving his brother all the metal I was to ask him to clean out my eavestroughs which need cleaning out badly.

After Dale and Cheryl left I was planning on taking a shower but forgot I couldn't. Darn it! LOL I put some water in the tub with the plug in and took a quick sponge bath to get the dirty water off my body. I felt much better.

I called my brother David and asked if he got my message from when I called earlier and he said his daughter didn't give it to him. I told him about the flooding and I said I would need some help cleaning up the basement once the city guys came. He said he had a power washer but couldn't help me until after the holiday which I said was fine because I Dales brother had to remove the metal junk. I told him lots of stuff would have to be thrown out - stuff that belonged to the family that has been down there forever. I said it should have been cleaned out long ago. He promised to help me but knowing my brother as I do and his memory - he will forget. Nothing unusual about that. LOL

My friend Donna called around 10 pm just after I got finished cleaning up and invited me over for something to eat. Against my better judgement I left the air conditioner running on low and while I was at Donna's it poured out again and then a cold front moved in. I came into the house and turned off the air and opened the windows. I went down the basement and wow - it was flooded again!

I changed into my shorts and put my boots on, plugged in the pump and went downstairs. I turned on the pump - I was afraid I was going to be electrocuted. LOL I put the pump into the sewer and the hose popped off and the water went into my face and my eyes. I put the hose back on, turned it on and it popped off again. I gave up! Cheryl and I had closed the basement window to keep the bugs out around the hose and must have closed it a little to tight so when the water went out of the hose it couldn't get past the window so the hose popped off. I was soaked to the skin and the dirty, germy sewer water got into my eyes. I took another hot sponge bath and really rinsed my eyes out well. I hope I don't get an infection.

So now I am getting ready for bed. Sunday morning is almost here and I don't know if the City guys are going to show up or not. I'll have to get the pump working again in a few hours but I dread putting on my boots because they are soaked through.

I am soooo tired and sore from all the hours of sweeping the water.

One good thing about all of this is that the water was pretty clean (no sewage that I could see) and that I am getting someone to remove all that metal junk from my basement and my eavestroughs cleaned out. Plus I do have some wonderful neighbours.

Sorry this update was long. Typing what happened helps me alleviate my stress.

Anne

Oh, what a mess you've had to handle, Anne!

I have a bit of water come up through cracks in the floor, and some from one corner of the basement, but just a bit lies on the floor, then dries up during a couple or three days, or runs into the hole where the sump pump sits, quietly waiting for it.

I think that you'll need to break a hole in the cellar floor, dig out some dirt and make a round tube about a foot across and probably a couple of feet deep, with wall and floor of concrete, called a sump. Then install a sump pump in it, which has a float that raises up when some water collects in the little tub, turning on the pump. That float needs to be below floor level, of course, so that it starts the pump before the water gets as high as the floor. There's another weighted float near the floor of the sump, that turns off the pump when the water level has been lowered to near the bottom.

Remember where the lowest spot is on the floor, as you'd like to have the sump located there, so that the water will flow to that low spot, then into the sump, where the pump will remove it.

The sump pump here just discharges out onto the lawn, but you'll need to check with people who know the city rules about such things. Likely you'll need to discharge it into the same channel that the floor drain goes to, likely into the storm sewer.

But the trouble with that is, that it's likely that the water came in through the floor drain, or possibly some of it did, and some through the walls, or cracks in them.

Sometimes people install a one-way valve in the floor drain, that lets water flow out, but blocks water from coming in. However, if pressure wanting to come in gets strong enough, sometimes it'll blow the drain plug and some of the floor around it upwards, breaking the concrete. Such an experience is rather infrequent, I think - but some familiar with your local situation will know whether that may be a possibility.

People who know the neighbourhood will know the situation.

You'd like to have the sump located in a corner, out of the way, or at least somewhere along a wall, but it is rather important to locate it close to the lowest spot in the floor.

Should I tell you that I've been pumping water out of the well to pour on the rows in the garden?

We got some rain yesterday (Friday) and some more today (Saturday) ... you can see that I haven't changed gears to make "today" into "Sunday", yet.

I guess it's time to go to bed.

I pulled a lot of Lamb's Quarter weeds and washed them on Sat. aft. and evening and they are rinsed and sitting draining on the barn floor, waiting to be put into trays to take to the two churches that I attend.

Free is better than 99 cents for less than a pound of spinach. Not quite free, for I suggest that they increase their contribution to the church envelope.

And some folks like to collect dandelion leaves early in the spring to cook with a bit of water for greens ... but I think that they've become too bitter by now for most folks to tolerate them.

Better luck today (Sunday) and tomorrow, Anne.

ole joyful

(((((((((((((((((Cherryfizz))))))))))))))))))))
I wish I could be there to help you. What an ordeal you are going through. It will be good to know the source of this and like Ole Joyful mentioned - get a sump pump installed. I can't imagine going through something like this.
Come back and vent anytime.
LOL
McPeg

Hope things get better for you.

Oh, AnneI've been there and I sympathize! My freezer is still sitting on big blocks from the last flood. (It's so tall I can't open the lid all the way, but oh, well . . . )

I admire your good attitude!

I'm worn out reading about your flood water dilemma Anne. What a dirty, tiring mess to have to deal with. I'm sorry you are going through this and so very glad you have good, strong and willing neighbors and friends to help you out. We stay too dry to suit me, but I'm pretty sure I'd rather have it that way than too much rain. It can be devastating.

Anne...I feel for you...

We went through that every summer when we lived in town....

We lived on the west end of town, which was bordered by the river. When the river was high the water level was high. The water just seeped through cracks in the floor.

We finally broke out the concrete all the way around the outside edge of the basement floor...dug down....put in pea gravel....then one of those black plastic drain pipes with holes...it is a bendable pipe not ridged....Dug a sump pump hole....bought a liner for the hole that looked like a real large rubber garbage can that had holes in it for the pipes to drain to....

Oh...and the pipes had to be higher on the other side so they would drain down to the sump pump hole.

Then it had to re cemented.

After that we hardly ever got water again. Once in awhile we'd get just a little but it could be sucked up with the wet vac.

It took a lot of work which we did ourselves and I'm sure it would cost a little but so worth it.

I wish you could have something like that done.

until then I would buy a submersible pump.

I'm sorry you are alone to face this...It sure helps to have a shoulder to cry on.

you have a lot of invisible ones here to use.

patti

Thank you for commiserating with me. LOL

I never went to bed and at 6 am I finally faced going dowm the basement again. My boots were so wet I could barely get them on. Both sides were flooded again with water from wall to wall. I set up the pump and it worked for a bit and I leaned down to get a better grip on the stem of it and the hose popped off again. Sewer water from head to toe and in my mouth and eyes. I was so grossed out. I immediately went upstairs, threw off my clothes and stood in the bathtub for another soaping down. Bathtub water is pretty grimy right now but at least I am not sitting in it and I can't let the water go down the drain.

I look a wreck, my hair is yucky from the sewer water. Down the basement I went again and this time I managed to get most of the water out. All morning I have been going down the basement every 10 minutes or so because the ground is saturated and the water is just seeping back into the basement.

I had to sit on the front porch until it started raining at 9:30 am because if I take my wet boots off I wouldn't be able to get the on again.

I called the Public Works departement at 10:00 am and the guy on the phone said I am still on the list. I reminded him the trap was in the house because I didn't want them to be surprised when they get here and then say they can't do it. They have done it before.

I was having problems with the hose outside because it was really heavy with water so Cheryl helped untwist the hose so the water would come out better.

It is raining again and is supposed to rain until 2:00 pm. so I am going to have a lot of pumping to to do.

I can't wait until the city guys come so I can have a shower. I hope my washer and dryer work because I have lots of stuff to wash.

Back down to the basement - it is really raining heavy out.

Oh yeah, since I can't get my waterlogged winter boots on I found my old duck shoes so as long as I keep the water below my ankles I can wear them and stay dry.

Have a nice dry day everyone!

Anne