Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Fishbowl, Part 2

Woo hoo, I fixed the water problem (for now?) and there is no longer standing water in the window well. The rain has also really died down, but I like to think that what I just did took care of most of the problem. That would only be fair, since I probably caused the problem to begin with.

Back a few months, I replaced the old sump pump. At the same time, I installed a check valve at the pump because there was not one previously, and a large amount of the water pumped out would drain right back into the sump well. This was done at a time when we still had freezing weather, and once I added the check valve the water became trapped in the discharge hose since it couldn't drain back into the well like it had always done before. Well, the water in the hose froze and I had to cut the discharge hose to get the ice cleared so the pump could work. Once it was cleared, I just placed a larger diameter hose over it and directed it towards the low ground next to the house. What I didn't notice until now is that the thing was blowing water out right towards the house - about 1/3 of the water being discharged came right back to the house, right at the window well. After rigging up a temporary "much better than I had before" fix, it's now discharging over 99% of the water away from the house as it should. Within 20 minutes, the window well was empty. As we are expecting more rain over the next few days, I'll keep an eye on it.

Anybody else want to man-up and admit a major fvck-up which could have really turned into a disaster?

2 comments:

Nathan said...

Uh, I guess I bought my house! It still remains to be seen if that was a good idea or a major fvck-up! I haven't really done enough yet to do any major damage... most likely yet to come!

Muskego Jeff said...

Nate, I have faith that you'll eventually do something you want to kick your own ass for doing in the first place.