Mother Nature Kind Of Screwed Me

[uberam3rica]

For those of you that don't know, I live in the thumb of Michigan. Friday or Saturday we got three inches of snow. Sunday night, we got freezing rain, which turned most of the snow to ice. Monday it got up to about 45 degrees, which started to melt the snow. Tuesday(I forgot I'm writing this a bit after midnight so it would technically be yesterday, not today) it got up to almost 60, and rained most of the day. This caused a lot of excess water, and my area had flood warnings. Well, the ground is still frozen. So somewhere along the line our drainage pipes must have some ice blocking them, because the water backed up into my basement. Thankfully nothing was ruined, but it took a long time to clear out. We had to suck it up with a shop vac and then pout that into a buck and dispose of it. The water is still coming up, but not as bad. My dad found an electric pump, so we should be good now. It just pissed me off, because me and my friend we hanging out playing video games, when this happened. Hauling buckets of smelly water up a flight of stairs for 45 minute was not something I wanted to do.

 

[pstlpkr]

I hear ya Ben. The weather has been particularly lousy here too.

Ending Friday a week ago, we had 12 consecutive days of rain followed by lucky 13 which was snow.... :roll:

Turned my yard into a swamp with dandruff.
::

 

[uberam3rica]

I'm surprised your house didn't already have an electric sump in the basement

It does. But the drainage pipe for it must have been blocked. Plus it rained for probably more then 12 hours. We have a 6 inch pipe going around our foundation, and there was more water then it could handle. As we sucked out the water, more took it's place. It took more then 45 minutes just to get it to a stand still and that didn't last long. I carried buckets for about 45 minutes, and before that my brother did it for awhile. I don't know how long he did it for, but I know that I did it for longer.

Crappy weather, too...with the drought we've had here the last couple of years, I wouldn't have minded the moisture you're having, maybe next time just point it in this direction

I wish I could give you this rain. It would have been nice to have had it this summer. It was so hot and dry. It was in the 90s consistently, which is unusual for Michigan. Especially where I live, I'm half an hour away from lake Huron. It's usually rather comfortable.

 

[tanless1]

I'm glad you had a friend to help. I got to do it all by myself.up the stairs and out the door, back to the basement and do it again and again.....what a night.

 

[uberam3rica]

I got to do it all by myself

That sucks. We had a nice system going. My dad sucked up the water, my friend emptied the water, and I disposed of it. By the time I got back to the basement, he was ready to fill the bucket again. Good system or not, it was still a pain in the ass. Our basement smells like a swamp now. You can kind of smell it on the first floor, but not really. Luckily my room is on the second floor, so my room doesn't smell. I keep my pipes and baccy in my room, so the only thing my room smells like is pipe tobacco!

 

[rcstan]

Ugh! Sorry to hear about that. Never happened to me since I live in the big city of Anchorage but some folks here in rural Alaska with "dry" cabins ( haul water in, fill water tank, plumbing empties into septic tank ) find helpful to have a little heater in the basement where the "shit pipes" go into the main drain, and just keep that thing running.

 

[uberam3rica]

The drainage pipe is 15 feet below ground. The pipe goes out into our back yard a bit, so it's hard to say where the blockage is. Luckily it is just dirty water, not sewage.

 

[uberam3rica]

I had a sewage drain clog here at my house a couple of months back

That must have been horrible. Just the smell alone. Ugh. Nasty.

 

[uberam3rica]

I swore I could still smell shit for 3 days

I would have too. I'm not a germaphobe, but I hate being dirty, sticky, sweaty, or unclean in any way. It just bugs me.

 

[bigboi]

That happened to us too. we totally had to get a new sump pump and everything for our basement. A total new dry system. I am crossing my fingers it works or that company is coming out to fix it again.

 

[uberam3rica]

we totally had to get a new sump pump and everything for our basement

Ours still works. My dad is pretty sure it's just because of the blockage. Normally at this time of year we wouldn't have this much water. It isn't supposed to be 54 degrees at the end of January in Michigan.

 

[uberam3rica]

It rained again today. I'm assuming everything is ok, because my dad didn't say anything when I came home.

 

[captainsousie]

Completely sucks you had to deal with that.

 

[yaboofive]

That happened to me once too about two years ago, I had just built an apartment in my folks basement when we had a freak storm of rain and hail that flooded me in the basement. I had just put in new wood floors and everything. The real crappy thing is that I moved into the basement due to my apartment being condemned due to flooding damage because of a water main break on the third floor.

 

[markdonald]

The storm had hit our city and we experienced huge damages due to it. Our area was flooded and my garage roof was completely damaged due to it.

 

[mrenglish]

It's six AM and I am reading this thread and thinking WTF, it's supposed to be 90 degrees today in Ohio, how in the heck is Michigan getting snow already?
After some coffee and my pipe started, I noticed it was started six months ago. :laughat:

 

[wnghanglow]

Crazy weather here to, not to long ago there was a sever hail storm causing extensive damage to my roof, luckily I rent so I could pass that problem onto the landlord lol I have never been in a flood though. Although it doesn't sound like I'm missin out on anything fun.

 

[taerin]

If you own a basement anywhere, you always should have at least one sump pump in case of a flood. We have 4 of them, all on battery backups for 13 hours worth (we use a battery from a ship) because we get floods all the time.

 

[zonomo]

I once came home for a week long vacation to see that a pipe had busted in my garage and flooded everything. I had collected some book from the mid 1800's and many of them were destroyed. I was heart broken that they were destroyed on my watch. I was hoping they'd be around for many more years. I feel your pain.