Yesterday I ran 4 miles at an 8:30 pace. I was pretty excited about it. Since I ran on a treadmill (something I almost never do, but it was 22 degrees yesterday and I was feeling sissy-ish), I was SWEATY.
Came home, started to draw a bath. About 2 inches of hot water ran before it ran out. I chalked it up to laundry and the dishwasher. Killed some time. Went back to run the water. Still cold.
Pilot light on the water heater? Meh. No biggie. Went to the basement, opened the door.
Saw the lake. Worse than last spring. How? No idea. The sump pump and the lift station pump were both running, but apparently that was insufficient.
So last night we turned off the gas to the water heater and furnace and bundled all into bed under a bunch of quilts, slept sound and warm pretending there wasn't a problem. This morning turned it on just to heat the house up again, then back off.
At some point in all this I called Mom just to get a pat on the head and a little reassurance. She did even better than that - generously offered to pitch in some money. Ben called Dad and they did some assessing. I went to the hardware store and bought the parts they need, they're downstairs doing their best.
Apparently a 1/4 horsepower sump pump is insufficient. So we bought one that's a full horsepower. Supposedly it pumps 91 gallons a minute. Oh, I'm hoping against hope that this will finally solve the problem!!
I'm so grateful for people that love us and have the know-how and wherewithal to help us.
** Update: After Ben took the first shift working, he took over with the kids and I went into the water world with Dad. Some really cold toes later (I don't have waterproof boots....apparently it's not just on trail races that I can mind-over-matter cold water on my feet!), things are draining well. Hooray!
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6 comments:
"Went to the basement, opened the door. Saw the lake." OH NO! After reading all that, I have one silly question. Did you get a bath/shower? I hope this was winning the war, not just the battle this time around.
One of the most disappointing moments of my youth was coming home from a cross-country meet sweaty and muddy only to be told the water was off while my dad fixed it. Going to bed that night was gross. I'm glad the problem is on the mend but especially glad that you've probably had a hot shower by now.
We've had to go to Ben's parents' house to shower. The water heater got wet enough on the bottom (where all the sparking/lighting/heating/burner mechanism is) that we're going to have to give it a while and see if it dries out.
I guess I could go the old fashioned way and heat water on the stove to mix in with the cold tap water.....but our family's nice to us. :-)
This is a question that stems from ignorance, since I didn't grow up with a basement - where does all that water come from? From the pipes? From outside?
The ground. It's only a problem in places (like Ohio) where the water table rises and falls dramatically with rain. When it rains a lot the ground gets saturated, and the drain system that's around a house's foundation (turns out ours are French drains, which are usually quite effective) can't keep up. The water seeps in through the sump pit (which is designed to catch the water draining off the foundation and then be pumped out by the sump pump), which can overflow if the pump can't keep up. In our case, the water also seeps in where the walls meet the floor....it's annoying, but it's one more last-ditch safety measure to keep the foundation from cracking from built-up pressure. I'd rather the water in the basement, I guess, but it's still annoying.
It's nice to have good ground water because we don't have the irrigation issues that places like California and Utah do....but we can get flooded basements. Give-and-take, I guess. :-)
That's interesting, I just assumed that in places where the water table was high, people didn't build basements. In TN they don't build them because the ground is solid rock, which makes them ridiculously expensive to dig out. Thanks for enlightening me. :)
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