I hope everyone, who has been dealing with flooding issues this past week, is recovering and drying out. This is a long post, but maybe the construction parts will be useful to some. I have been on the road since Sunday and really wondered what I would return to yesterday. First, some background. Even though I live on a 50+ foot deep sand hill in the Connecticut River valley as Ive described in other postings, the pitch of the main house roof onto the rear Âbarn or extension roof has meant that, for the last 236 years, water has poured down into the corner made by the main house and the extension, pooled up, and run down through the stone foundation and into the dirt floor basement. So, the basement is always damp, making it unsuitable for storage and also a source of dampness and odor that can affect the whole house. Last fall, when those poor people died in Alstead (about 15 miles south of me) after the dam on the Cold River broke, my basement flooded deep enough to cover the furnace motor (nancylouise, I feel your pain). Fortunately, the motor fired up, once I got the sump pump working and drained the basement, but then and there I decided to tackle the centuries-old problem. The solution was two-fold: 1) build a 50-foot long, seven-foot wide (eight-foot roof) farmerÂs porch on the north side of the extension (which houses the kitchen, mud room and garage/carriage house) to deflect the water that comes off of that side of the roof out into the lawn, and 2) build a 24 x 16 foot great room addition into the other corner where the larger quantity of water has always pooled and leaked into the basement. The frost walls from the addition have perforated piping along their outside base and there is even a pipe along the old foundation of the main house that goes through the frost wall and links up with the other pipes, all of which empty into a drain pipe that goes under the drive and dumps into the stream. The new room is framed out and, as of Sunday the roof had been felted, but the metal roof was not on, yet. My rainfall totals for the past eight days have not been nearly as impressive as those of the folks in the Merrimack Valley, but still added up to way more than normal: Friday: 0.40 Saturday: 0.93 Sunday: 1.03 Monday: 0.12 Tuesday: 0.53 Wednesday: 0.01 Thursday: 0.03 Friday (So far): 1.10 Total: 4.15 Odd how, for me, today has been the wettest day, so far. So, how did things fare? The farmerÂs porch was completed earlier this spring and has completely solved the problem on that side of the house (so far). The ground on that side of the basement is slowly drying out (was soupy for most of the winter). On the other side with the room, which now has the metal roof in place, but where the ground has still not been finish graded, the water came off of the roof so hard last Sunday that it created a 2-foot deep sinkhole next to the new frost wall up against the main house. If you can imagine all that rain coming off of the main house onto the new roof and then pouring off in one spot, it kind of looks like Niagara Falls. As a result the water had nowhere to go, backed up under the frost wall and came through the foundation and into the basement. The water was pouring over the rocks of the foundation like one of those indoor waterfalls. I saw this just before I left for my trip, and it freaked me out just a tad, since the whole point of the new room was to carry the water away from that piece of foundation. . But, my contractor put some wood up temporarily to deflect the water over the sink hole, and no water has come through the foundation since, so it is a specific problem with a solution. The site guy is coming up this weekend to dig it out and run additional piping along the wall and a second drain pipe out to the stream (After the grass seed I spread two weeks ago finally sprouted in all this rain, of course). Once everything is graded, we will be adding a couple layers of 6 mil plastic sheet on the ground along that entire wall, which will be under a permanent eight-foot wide, full room length deck. This should move the water away from the foundation and finally provide a permanent solution to the wet basement problem. As a side benefit, the new room is going to be wicked cool  lots of windows and skylights in a south-facing room. Out in the gardens, all the plants seemed to have taken this deluge well. The daffodils, tulips and hyacinths didnÂt lose any petals, and the constant watering has certainly helped all the new plantings. All-in-all, except for that one glitch with the sink hole, which is really a function of the ground settling, things seem to be moving along. Again, my best thoughts and wishes to everyone, who has not been so lucky. If there is a take away from the ramble it is that for anyone considering running exterior ÂFrench drains to remediate a water problem, my advice is to not underestimate the power of water and to overbuild the solution. Better to add larger or extra pipes that will Ânever be needed than to wake up one morning to a cold house, a flooded basement and a submerged furnace. My contractor, the site prep guy, and the foundation guy all thought I was overreacting in my comments about how much water came off of the roof and into the house. In one sense, IÂm actually glad the water came into the basement this week, because it showed everyone what I was talking about. Also, if you have the option, just moving the water away from the foundation might be all you need. The farmerÂs porch didnÂt cost much more than the trenching and piping solution would have cost. But, with the pipes I would have been left with nothing to show on the outside of the house. Now, I have a functional covered porch that actually adds beauty and breaks up some boring lines on that side of the house (before it was just an 80-foot straight piece of wall). So, sometimes you have to think Âoutside of the box. narcnh

I walked home to check on the palms last night Mike- it was like an Arctic wasteland-unbelievable! Half of my G-house collapsed,it was a good thing I checked it,I think part of it had to be laying on the space heater. I turned of all the power-there is really no reason to heat with that much snow on everything. Supposed to be -12 tonight,maybe. I figure the snow will insulate everything-gotta leave it as it lays until the lows get into the teens again in a few days. This is about the time of year when I question whether I will continue with this hobby- SPRING usually helps me forget all the white stuff pretty quick- there is a lot to forget on the ground right now,I would guess 15"+ but there's no way to know exactly....... Forgot to mention,the rest of it(G-house) collapsed this morning )-:

Carol, During the Red River flooding of 2007, parts of our Mesonet station were disabled for days and days. I think the issue lasted until the worst of the flooding subsided. At some point they went back and manually corrected what records they could, but much data for the Burneyville station for that month is incomplete and considered somewhat unreliable. It drove me nuts. I had to rely only on my own observations! LOL I need a rain gauge that measures 10 or 12" of rain. I don't need it often (hee hee) but once every 2 or 3 years we get 25-35% of our annual rainfall in one day. When that happens, depending on how fast the rain is falling, I have to put on my muck boots, grab an umbrella and run outside and empty the rain gauge when it gets close to the 6" mark so it won't overflow and give an incorrect measurement. In April 2006, we had 9.25" in one day and most of that fell in about 4 hours. I went out and emptied out the gauge when it hit 5", and then I went out and emptied it out again when it hit 4". Shortly after that, the rain pretty much stopped. This year, the 12.4" fell over a longer period of time--maybe 8 hours or so--and I dumped the rain gauge 2 or 3 times so it wouldn't overflow. Based on statistics, we shouldn't have a massive rainfall for another 2 or 3 years, but sometimes statistics lie. "Christmas Day maybe?" LOL LOL LOL Here is what I am thinking. I am about to catch up and I will have one of those days really, really soon. I have two large bowls of tomatoes on my counter to process, so I think I'll roast them and a few other veggies at the same time and maybe make roasted tomato-garlic soup. That takes care of them. Then, I'll pick tiny tomatoes this evening (too hot already this a.m.) and dehydrate them. Then, I shouldn't have to process tomatoes again for 2 to 4 days, although I pick daily. I'll pick okra at the same time I pick little tomatoes, add it to what I picked yesterday, and blanch and freeze that. That's another veggie I shouldn't have to harvest again until tomorrow evening then, and I usually wait until I have two days' worth before I blanch/freeze. I also should have enough purple hull pinkeyes tonight to either cook a batch or freeze one, and then I should be able to skip picking for a day or two because they are slowing down. So, if I can get black-eyed pes, okra and tomatoes all done today/this evening, I shouldn't have to process them again for about three days. LOL It isn't much, but it is the best I can do. That only leaves hot peppers and sweet peppers. OK, so I have a lot of sweet peppers coloring up and I can pick them and freeze them for future use any time. I might do that tomorrow. If I do, it will take me just a couple of hours to pick 'em, wash 'em, slice 'em or chop 'em and get them into the freezer. That, then would leave only hot peppers. I've done a very heavy picking of hot peppers at least every other week since mid-July. At the present time, it has been about 10 days since I did a heavy picking, although I run out to the garden and pick as needed for cooking or canning recipes. So, I might be able to go 5-7 days before I pick hots again since rainfall is low and growth is relatively slow. So, where this is leading to is here: if I pick and process okra, peas and tomatoes tonight (Thurs.) and sweet peppers on Friday, and postpone hots until Mon. or Tues., then I should have Saturday off! Well, I'll have to pick okra, but I can stick it in the fridge and blanch/freeze it on Sunday. So, you see, I might get a day off. Unfortunately, Saturday is our best chance of rain here (about a 70% chance of rain and they are saying it may be heavy) so it probably would be a good day to be inside canning. It is hard to make the 'day off' fall where you want it to fall. I might do all I can on Saturday if it is raining, and try to make Sunday the day off because I love to cook a big family lunch and spend the afternoon watching NFL football. We still need and want rain here, and I think that by the end of the weekend, maybe I'll be able to say we finally got some. And, all my food processing predictions assume the plants will ripen produce as I expect it to. Every now and then, you walk out in to the garden and discover that blackeyed peas are suddenly purple earlier than expected, or the okra grew especially fast overnight or whatever. At this point, I'm just grateful the fall beans, corn, cukes and peas aren't producing finished products yet. As long as I keep up with the still-producing summer plants, I will be putting up a little food regularly, but not huge amounts on any given day. I will have a big green bean and big corn day or two in October if all goes well. I really think the heavy food processing load is lessening though. I'm still doing frequent batches, but smaller ones. When the fall broccoli is ready, that will be a big day or two, but that's some time off. Dawn

Very good information, chas045. Thanks. I have always suggested everyone to get a generator. Weather problems will be with us for the next century. You need to power up your heating system in the winter. Pipes bursting in the winter can cost you thousands. You need to run your water pump if you have a well. You need to keep your refrigerator going. It's good to have lights, computer, phones and internet. I am not advocating this, because it is illegal. Back-feeding with a generator is the cheapest way to go to power up half of your house. However, I always find it difficult to understand with the main technical reason that back-feeding can kill a lineman. A professional lineman takes all kinds of precaution when he is working. If you don't turnoff your main breaker, you simply cannot start your generator. Your generator will be attempting to power up your entire neighborhood and all the street lights. Repeat: Don't do it, just use a heavy duty extension cord. It is not that painful to use an extension cord for a few days. A 1,000 watt generator is about $200. How big a generator do you need? Incandescent light about 100 watts CFL light, 25 watts Computer about 100 watts Phone charger, 1 watt Small electric fan, 50 watts Microwave, 600 to 1,250 watts Toaster oven, about 1,800 watts Refrigerator, Freezer, depending on size, from 800 watts Attic fan, 350 watts Forced air heating system fan, 500 watts Refrigerator, 20 cf, 800 watts TV, 250 watts Air conditioner, about 1 watt/BTU rating Hair dryer, up to 1,850 watts Electric oven, forget about it. Takes too much power. Electric water heater, 2,500 watts to 4,500 watts. Three other important things to keep in mind, besides capacity of a generator. 1. full-load running time 2. Noise level - quiet generators are more expensive. But you don't want your neighbors complaining. 60 dbs is very quiet. You will get lots of complains at about 80 dbs. 3. weight - A good 2,000 watt generator can be light enough to go camping with, others can be very heavy to transport. dcarch