"Keep a Journal: How else are you going to get a good look at who you were?"

Sunday, December 09, 2007

The Story of the Flood so far:

KWY wrote me a letter when he accidentally hit the wrong "send" button and I got some of his business Email and razzed him about it. His basement in his new place in Mountain View, Alberta has also had a flood recently.

So I wrote him back:

Hello again;

I'll see your flooded basement and raise you two more; plus a third next week if I can't get the City of Delta and the good people at Milani Plumbing & Drainage on the same page.

If you've been keeping up on my 'blog ( www.brianarcweblog.blogspot.com ), you've already read how we came home from vacation Oct. 20th to find most of the basement floor covered in water. We had the floor removed, and moved the contents to the west end of the basement. Record rainfall, and a faulty drain were blamed and life went on.

Then, of course I got a premonition in the wee hours of Dec. 3rd...

Floor drain was full of water...again.

Water was rising...again.

The water couldn't rise any further than two inches 'cause that's the height of the toilet flange in the downstairs bathroom...the sanitary line is still ok, but the foundation drainage was apparently still obstructed...

Ok...let's shorten this up a bit...

Milani came out on Tuesday and flushed the foundation tile, and incidentally found concrete blocking the connection to the storm drain. When we called the City to find out what was up, we were told that was because our drain was never actually connected...

Uwah?

The city's contractor went looking for the outlet pipe from our house...but didn't find it, and due to liability issues, they could not dig up the entire driveway to go looking for it. Nice of them to tell us, eh?

SO:

Milani is coming out tomorrow (tried for today) and will go looking for that outlet. IF their guy finds it, I can let the city know and they will - For FREE! - dig it up and connect it to the new storm drain. If he can't, I will pay several thou$and dollar$ to have a trench dug across my driveway from the nearest downspout port to where the storm drain IC is. I do hope they'll re-pave...

In the meantime, of course, we've moved all the contents (again!) to the garage workshop. We'll be getting the entire basement flooring, walls, bathroom and possibly even the downstairs steps re-done. I want to rent the suite out after it's refurbished...what Laurie wants I will leave for another letter.

Hoping to find you and yours well and prosperous;

Brian.

Ok...that brings us up to Monday. Milani did indeed find the drain sump, and the outlet pipe therefrom...it stops about 6 feet short of where the city was digging last summer, but it does head off in the direction the plans they have on file show. Unfortunately, milani's technician couldn't tell where the pipe exited. At the point where the camera stopped, the pipe is either collapsed, blocked with debris, or makes an abrupt turn. I think it turns 45 deg to the west and abuts on the hollow ash brick retaining wall; from there it used to drain into the drainage ditch...but of course, the ditch isn't there any more.

Rob, from the Corp of Delta, is on vacation next week, but he was good enough to introduce me to Darren...who is Superintendent with the works dept. Darren will be coming out Monday morning to have a look at the situation; if it meets his approval, he'll arrange for a crew to come out either Monday afternoon or Tuesday. I'm sure "wednesday at the latest" is in the back of his mind somewhere.

If he doesn't approve...I may just take a mattock to the @#$%^&*!!! driveway.

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