Day Number Three

Today is the third day of the workers in my basement. They are telling me that there is at least one more day of work. Yesterday, they did more trenching around the outside of my house and carried out the debris that was jack hammered loose on the inside. It wasn’t a warm day, but it was humid and the guys were sweating like crazy as they loaded and dumped the waste concrete.

Their next chore was to hand dig the trench around the inside wall of the basement. The ditch is almost twelve inches wide and I am not sure how deep it will be. There will be an interconnecting drainage pipes that will deliver the influx of water to collection pots. Inside the collection pots are sump pumps that will push the water up and out.

In my cold cellar, a small room at the back of my basement, they will install beams that should remedy a bulge in the block wall. It will stabilize it and keep it from advancing and collapsing. The drainage ditch also runs the inside perimeter of that room as well.

The soil beneath the concrete was heavy with rocks and clay. Bucket after bucket was carried out and dumped, to make way for the drainage pipe.

They are to seal any cracks or holes in the cinder block walls as part of the process of waterproofing. On the outside, the trenching will be dug below the frost line. They will give the exposed wall a plastic coating and membrane, lining the bottom of the ditch with a “J” panel to redirect any water. Water from the downspouts is directed away from the house.

On the outside corner, they are digging another pit and installing another pot and sump pump for hauling away any water from the outside. Water has a tendency to run down my drive in a heavy rain and into my basement. With extremely heavy rains, I have had water, ankle deep in the cellar. Two smaller sump pumps couldn’t keep up with the influx. I used a third outside and would redirect the outside water out into the yard, away from the garage door.

Tomorrow they are to install an air circulating system. It is to remove more water from the air than two normal dehumidifiers. The target for me, is to have a dry basement where I can store things without worry of mold, mildew, or rust.