Drain Problem

Every time we dig a big hole, it somehow fills up with water. Happened when we dug up the floor for piping. Happened again when we dug out the window well. The last thing you need (aside from a headache) is water seeping through your new window into the basement.

Solution? Invite the water inside and send it exactly where you want it: to the drain! Here's what the local building code said we had to do -- drill a hole through the wall (under the new window), stick a pipe through the hole and angle it so that it collects rain water and carries it to the inside of the basement wall and then spits it out under the concrete floor. A drain system under the floor then carries the water all the way around the perimeter of the house to the sump pump, which pumps all the ground water out to a storm drain under the street.

The whole idea of making a hole so that the water could come inside our new basement seemed crazy at first, but now that the pipes are all in place, it makes perfect sense. It also didn't hurt that we got to use the jack-hammer again :)

Pits, windows, and tipsy toads

With springtime downpours nearly every weekend, the sides of the well caved in twice (resulting in hours upon hours of extra digging). When a dry spell finally showed up, we went to work, building the well and installing the window as fast as we could.

At the time we were working on the egress window, the boys had been busy memorizing a scripture from 2 Nephi 28:8, which says "And there shall also be many which shall say...dig a pit for thy neighbour; there is no harm in this." They could barely hold in their laughter when our next door neighbor showed up one evening while we were all covered in mud and....you guessed it, offered to help us dig our pit!

Now that everything's in place, we don't have to worry about mud caving into the well. But there's a new concern -- curious animals who venture to close to the edge of the well (wanting to see what all the rukus was about). Just a few days after the well was finished, the boys pulled off a search-and-rescue mission for a baseball-sized toad who lost his balance while hopping along the rim!

Bashing a hole through the wall

I grew up thinking that all it took to bash a big hole through a wall was a stick of gum, pieces from an old flashlight, and a little bit of time (remember MacGyver and the A-Team?).

Well, the boys decided our basement needed a big hole for a future window, but we went about it the old-fashioned way: shovels, lanterns, sledge hammers, diamond saws, and sweat!

In the end, we were victorious (though I'm sure Mr. T would have given me a serious growl for taking close to a week to bash out this hole).

And the wall-bashing continues...

Always wanted to try a jack-hammer!

Ever sit at a red light, watching a street crew guy (or gal) jack-hammer away some perfectly good part of the street while all his buddies stand around like they have nothing else to do? Well, I've seen it plenty of times, and I've always thought it would be tons of fun to actually pick up a jack-hammer and demolish something (preferably something that has nothing wrong with it, like a nice old slab of concrete....)

So, we held a little demolition-derby of our own. The boys were fantastic helpers. They helped chisel out a ton of the slab, and then helped load all the bits and pieces into buckets and carried them outside. When the hole was finally dug, the plumber suctioned the water out, cut out the old cast iron piping, and then put in new pipes for the shower, toilet, main drop (serves everything upstairs), bathroom sink, laundry sink and washing machine.

After the pipes were all set, Kristin and I mixed, poured and floated the new concrete. In the end, putting pipes under the floor was tons of work, tons of fun, and totally worth it to have a full bathroom in our basement.

More pictures from digging and cementing the under-slab bathroom plumbing.

First Things First

Number One on our list was the old concrete sink. Logic suggest that it was original to our house, but whenever I stood there grimacing at it, I could almost hear it whispering to me that it was way, way older than that.

Bearing the stains of countless paintbush washings, muddy golashes, and a corroding, rusty rim, it practically begged to be put out of its misery.

We were happy to help.

In the beginning...

It was scary, I'll admit. Dark. Dank. Damp. You name it. Our basement was somethin quite like a dungeon, just no chains on the wall.

Need proof? Take a look...