Water-logged

 

Ok, so I will try and explain this as best I can in my limited knowledge and memory. 

 

Back in late February and March if ya'll remember we had record rain in the PNW.  Let me show you where all 10+ record falling rain went!

Folks it went right under my house...kid you not!  I can't remember the gallons that were under there or pumped out, but it was a lot.  Basically 3+ feet of water (if I remember correctly).

 

Anyway, this all started  in February, our heat quit working and that was weird, we've never had that happen.  Well lucky for us we had a scheduled maintenance on our heat pump  coming  and of course before that appointment  the heat started working again.  Out of nowhere. *Like taking your car into see the mechanic because of a noise, then of course they never hear it* So the maintenance guy comes and we tell him what we experienced and he said he would look at everything.  And look he did, to the tune of several hundred dollars. 

Flash forward to end of February and our heat quit working again.  So I call our heat place and tell them what's going on and what happened last time. So a manager from the place  said he'd stop by and take a look see. 

 

He comes to the house and we get to talking and he asks to go under the house. So I take him around back .  I know the picture below doesn't show it but we normally have a board that blocks getting under the house.  So just remember that. 

So we get back there and there is some water in there in front of the board that blocks the crawl space.  Every so politely the guy asks me, "is there normally this much water under there?".  To which my reply is a very uneducated, "Uh...I don't know?"

 

So I take the board away and low and behold this what we found all under the house.  The fella was so impressed that he asked if he could take a picture.  Because you know you just don't see stuff like this EVERYday (infuse Bill Engval here)! I can't tell you how happy I was to be that person...thrilled!  He then informs me he won't be going under the house.  To which I respond with the fact that I just don't understand why! 

Honestly! Some people are just no fun at all!

 

It also crossed my mind several times that I was done being a home owner...I didn't want to be responsible anymore and I was good with that.  Now call the Landlord!

 

                        

BUT we did find out why our heat quit working...water was getting into the heat vents or hindering it by being soaking wet.  Those black things are the heat vents...yeah they quit working and for awhile we used our emergency heat, which is the equivalent to baseboard heaters.  Woohoo!  (I was thankful we still had a way to keep warm, don't get me wrong), but can we say Ka-CHING?

 

$$$$

                          

 The picture below is the middle of my house. That's a whole lot of water under my house.  Flash forward to May-ish.  I have been in contact with the city and such trying to figure stuff out.  I get a piece of paper showing me where the city drains are and where the drains are on my property.  Very interesting.

 If you look closely on the beam, I think it shows just how high the water got under the house, we were shocked! 

As it turns out, what we learned from that nice paper was that on our property is a really long drain, underground.  That drain not only takes on water from our property, but also the 4 other properties BEHIND us. 

So, to recap, the month of March had record rainfall to the tune of 10+ extra inches of rain that fell pretty much the first week or so of March.  Everything was water-logged and what wasn't being soaked up and drained down our drain was going underneath our house. 

Clearly we are unimpressed.

Back to when we first had to deal with this, we had two sump pumps going and draining into the city drain in a parking next to us.  We managed that for a day or two until the business said we couldn't use the city drain in their parking lot.  Uhhh ok, eye rolling, we then moved the hoses.  Moved them so the water drained down our driveway and down the road to another city drain. 

 Note to self, don't use city drain in a parking lot.It bothers so many people.

 

 Water has gone down as you can tell from this picture.

 Things are starting to emerge from the water.  One day while I was down there cleaning and getting a ton, and I do mean a ton of insulation out from under there.  I came across a knife, a spoon, and a wrench. I almost had a whole set of silverware! Goodness sakes.

 

It is now June and for the last month I would say it looks pretty dry down there, finally.  I think since March that might be the driest I have seen it.  I haven't actually gone down under to look...yet! 

 

I do know we have some trench digging to do and laying of drainage stuff to do and quickly.  Otherwise it could be a long summer (outside of the boys).  I am leery of using our AC during the summer if they strongly advised us to not use our heat pump during the winter/spring time while we were dealing with the water. 

 

 

Here's to digging up my yard! And putting up a side gate/fence ASAP!

*we are ok with putting this March behind us and never seeing it again!*