Floats, floods, flotsam, jetsam [housekeepery; rowing]

[rebeccmeister]

We got hit by some of the aftermath of Hurricane Isaias yesterday afternoon and early evening. Things weren't nearly so severe by the time they reached us as they were for some of you, so we only wound up getting around a 3.5" downpour and some gusts of wind. The weather radar loop sure looked interesting, though.

That was still enough rain to reach up over the top of the wooden platform in the basement:



That's a box of small bike parts and tools that got tipped over on its side, there. It will need to be dried out.

S and I have a running joke about how to repurpose the basement to take advantage of the flooding. I like to imagine filling it with pumpkins, so then the pumpkins would lift up and bob around whenever it floods.

Kind of like how this pair of wheels (center) floated and bobbed around, most pleasingly: (sorry, it's dark down there so photos are hard)



While checking on things I observed that there was an impressive amount of water spewing out of a drainspout on the apartment building next door:



Lots of flotsam and jetsam at the boat launch, too.



The water was higher than usual at high tide, but I've seen worse flood conditions on the Hudson before.

Two hours after the heaviest rainfall and the basement sump pumps had mostly finished their job, thank goodness.

Comments

[mallorys_camera]

I'm actually surprised that you of all people don't have a sump pump. 😀

[rebeccmeister]

Oh, there is a sump pump AND a backup sump pump. They were running. S had gently suggested to our landlord that he consider a more powerful one, but I guess not, so instead I get nervous phone calls and text messages from the landlord whenever we get rain like this.

[bluepapercup]

Augh!! so much water, OMG.

Does the rowing club take a day or two off rowing after an event like this? With the upstream CSOs and stormwater entering I have to imagine the bacteria count in the river is sky-high.

[rebeccmeister]

Sometimes. We don't generally cancel due to CSO events, but we DO have much better cleaning protocols in place now. Even when there isn't a CSO, one of my environmental studies colleagues has determined that bacterial counts are generally high.

[thisnewday]

I'm kind of interested in buildings and how they work and hope you don't mind a question or two about your recent flooding. The presence of raised wooden flooring suggests that the flooding is not unexpected. Is this typical of buildings in your area and, if so, do you know why? I know it's a weird question, so feel free to ignore if so inclined, lol...

[rebeccmeister]

Yeah, the raised wooden flooring, sump pump, and City-installed sump pump all definitely suggest the flooding is not unexpected, even though we live at an elevation fairly high above the Hudson River!

I believe it is somewhat typical for buildings in this area. I don't completely know why, but it probably has to do with a combination of the buildings and infrastructure being fairly old and pre-dating a lot of the construction methods used to keep basements dry. In addition, this part of the U.S. is experiencing a clear increase in annual rainfall, and that annual rainfall tends to fall from the sky all at the same time. So I would chalk some of it up to global climate change.

This particular basement is even more strange in that there's a drainage pipe leading INTO the basement on one end, then a sub-floor pipe across the length of the basement, leading to the actual sewage pipe on the other end of the basement. Plus an older sewage pipe that is no longer in use. The house is old enough that there's a coal room down there, too.

(also I am very glad I don't own this house)

Apparently sometime around the year 2015 there was a severe enough flood that the basement appliances all got destroyed - all of the appliances date to 2016, and the wooden platform also got built at that time. I suspect the wooden platform and other mitigation measures were done by a realtor or parties looking to sell the property without having to do the correct but vastly more expensive work.

Kind of fascinating, really. What has you interested?

Then there's the situation in other parts of the country, where people didn't even bother to build basements (Oklahoma) and where later on that has meant people dying in tornadoes because they don't have anywhere safe to shelter.

[thisnewday]

"The house is old enough that there's a coal room down there, too." Hahaha, well, I'm old enough that I lived in a house that was still getting coal delivered through a purpose-built window on the front basement wall!

I also remember my dad emptying the ashes and refilling the furnace before we got one of those new-fangled auto-feeding systems. Then, within the same 5 years that we lived there, he had both furnaces converted to natural gas.

I guess he didn't care for coming home from his post-war job as a manufacturing accountant and shoveling coal and ash. If he'd missed the shoveling all that much, he could've gone back to the farm where he grew up, lol.

I know we are facing some truly daunting problems with global climate change but you seriously can't imagine what a city of 235,000 located a few blocks off the shore of Lake Erie looked and smelled like in mid-winter when all of the houses were heated by burning Anthracite--or worse grades--of coal.

From what you're saying, it sounds like the periodic flooding is due to a combination of things including, as you suggest, both the owner's and the city's half-a$$ed attempts at mitigation. If there's no place for the water to go, you can have all the pump capacity in the world and you'll still have indoor swimming.

(The owner is most likely required by law to dump into the municipal sewer system but if both the piping from inside the house to the street is inadequate and/or deteriorated and the same is true of the municipal lines, it ain't gonna work.)

You don't mention where the water is actually coming in, but you're probably right that it's owing to the outdated construction. There's probably nothing at the base of the foundation wall to relieve the hydrostatic pressure that will force groundwater through voids in the footing and foundation.

And that's an expensive fix. Probably 3-4 rounds worth of new appliances, if you include furnace and water heater. So, nobody wants to spend the money to fix the problem but the money will get spent. Just over a longer period of time. And that's before any walls buckle, etc.

If the drainage pipe that's no longer connected is at the back of the house, it probably goes to an old septic system behind the house that was used before there were sanitary sewers. Once those were installed out at the street, a trench would've been dug, from the back of the basement to the front, and a new line run under the front wall of the house to connect to it.

I know about that because my grandson was practicing soccer in my backyard last summer and stepped through an opening where one of the timbers covering the old tank had rotted through and dropped down into it. Luckily, he wasn't injured. Or lost completely, lol.

As for my interest in all of this, it's just that--what I'm interested in. I wasted four years of my time and a bunch of my dad's hard-earned money on a 4-year degree that I used for 2 years before educating myself and earning my livelihood doing the kinds of things my parents had tried to save me from.

My old man used to say, "Too soon old, too late smart." And in my old age, I've concluded that he was right...

[rebeccmeister]

Ha! Well, it's fascinating stuff, still! Thank you for elaborating. And yeah, Anthracite in the winter sounds very unpleasant. I'm not specifically opposed to fossil fuels per se...just to activities that contribute to extensive release of it, which in a lot of ways comes back to overconsumption and overpopulation, when it gets down to it.

I've definitely seen evidence that the surrounding hydrostatic pressure is forcing at least some of the water into the house (seeps). But there's also some kind of drainage pipe opening, and water enters the basement through that pipe opening, too. That bit kind of makes me scratch my head, but maybe it made sense for the septic system.

The septic tank hypothesis is the best one I've heard yet! Useful to know, at least.

And regarding the cost coming out in terms of appliances over time or otherwise...yeah. Sounds accurate. Again, glad it's not my house and that we don't intend to live here permanently. I feel like I have learned a ton about what to look for and what to avoid if it ever comes time to look for a house to buy. S is rather strongly opposed to buying because he and an ex bought a house previously and so he had to deal with a few too many of the joys of home ownership (plus the joys of ex home ownership).

One thing is certain: the basement is NOT a good place to store much of anything. :^)