Painting

I managed to get the walls mudded, but I didn't do a fantastic job.  It's truly an art form for those who can do it.

Next on the list was to reattach the drop ceiling.  This wasn't a terribly difficult job, just extremely messy and dusty.  All the pieces had to be trimmed about 3 inches to make up for the difference in the walls.  I sneezed for about a week with all that stuff in my nose.

The drop ceiling, when reassembled, was an eyesore.  There were parts of it that were stained, a few areas where the metal frame was rusted, and the color was just not my favorite.  I wanted it to look black like a movie theater.  I did some research on the Internet, and everyone recommended not trying to paint the tiles by hand, because it would literally take forever to remove the tiles and try to fill all the little holes with a brush.  I borrowed my brother in law's professional paint sprayer, bought two cheap gallons of black paint at Menards ($7 each), and got set up.  Turned on the sprayer, and ...... nothing.  There was no suction whatsoever.  I couldn't figure out what was wrong, and I just decided to pick up a cheap Wagner sprayer at Home Depot.  The Wagner was messy, took a long time to refill the small 1/4 gallon container a lot, but it worked great.  I was able to spray the entire theater-side in just over two hours.  For anyone who's thinking about doing this, you need to hit the ceiling from every angle to plug all the holes.

Here's a look at the finished ceiling:

Next it was time to paint the walls.  I originally wanted a shade of green to compliment the other side of the basement.  But after the ceiling was black, all the colors I had previously liked looked REALLY dark.  The dark ceiling definitely sucks up a ton of light in the basement.  I had a moment of panic after consulting my wife, and I went with a color that was much lighter than the greens I picked.  The moment I started painting and got two walls done, I knew it was crap.  Angela also felt it was high on the crap scale.

Lots of yellow and hardly any green

I decided to go with my original color, because it couldn't be worse than what I'd picked.  I was happy with the Frosted Pine color from Glidden.

Next, I made preparations to mount the TV.  I got a great deal on a very basic but sturdy mount from Monoprice.com.   This mount never would've been possible in the old walls with 1 inch firing.

Next I cut holes in the wall and ran my wires through.  Again, I got a great deal on the recessed data plates from monoprice:

Finally, it was time to mount the TV:

Next up, installing the floating floor:

Walls of the Cave

No, I'm not referring to one of my favorite Phish songs, but the actual walls are up in the man cave.

It was a week where I got a lot done pretty fast.  First, I finished all the frames and was happy that they were sturdy.  They even look straight!



Wall frame


The nice thing about being able to start from scratch was that I was able to feed speaker wires, coax, and CAT5 down the frames where they'll come out in nice, clean boxes.  I also added an extra power outlet so the TV can plug right into the wall.  DataComm makes a recessed power connector for about $60.  I was able to make mine for just $3.



Wires


Next, it was time to insulate.  Originally, I had planned on putting in R-13 or R-19 batt insulation because it would fit nicely in between the studs, and it was cheap.  But after a call to my brother in law Mike (who owns an insulation company), he convinced me to upgrade to spray foam.  It costs about four to five times as much as fiberglass, but it provides a higher R-value and really seals up all the drafts that can come through the joists down to the basement.  More importantly, the foam creates a permanent moisture barrier between the wall and the interior of the house.  That's all I needed to hear.  It was an extra safeguard against a future flood.  I hired him, and he came to spray it last week.



Mike did the whole thing in about 30 minutes.



A close up of the closed-cell spray foam.

Now that the insulation was up, it was time to drywall.  Drywall sucks, but in this case, it wasn't that hard to get the panels up on the wall by myself.  I left them about an inch off the ground as a safeguard against any future flooding.

The Walls of the Cave

Slots for cords and such

Finally, I decided to put a few rolls of R-13 batt insulation up in the ceiling.  While this doesn't save you money in your home, it does help with both sound and heat retention in the basement.  Like I said before, my biggest complaint about the basement was how cold it was.  The foam insulation should do wonders, and a little extra up in the ceiling will at least hold a little bit of heat in the basement before it travels upstairs.  Second, it's hard to turn a movie to a normal level without the bass vibrating the entire upstairs.  Voices and conversations travel right through the drop ceiling as well.  By adding a little bit of fiberglass, the sound will stay in the basement where it belongs. 

Ceiling insulation

 Next up:

1. Prime the walls
2. Reattach drop ceiling
3. Paint ceiling
4. Paint walls
5. Flooring

Starting from scratch

I've made some progress in the last couple of days.  Since I had the basement down to skin n' bones, I figured a good strategy would be to give it an extra layer of protection against future flooding.  I bleached all the walls (c-ya black mold!) and laid down a couple of coats of waterproofer.  I used both Behr Masonry Waterproofer and Drylock.  I've seen some Internet posts that say you can't rely on these products to keep water out completely, but the added protection can't hurt.  I saturated the cracks where the water had seeped up the previous year and covered all the concrete patching I did.

Drylock'd

Today I also built my first framed wall.  Pretty simple to do, but a few tips came in handy.  First, my dad clued me in to the fact that the bottom 2x4 needs to be pressure treated lumber per code.  Makes sense, and if I ever get a flood again, that bottom wood should be just fine and not need to be replaced.  Second, I have to thank YouTube for all the handy videos that taught me simple things like which way your crown goes on the 2x4's, to how to insert and drive in a concrete anchor.

North wall frame

Only one blood blister from an errant hammer strike and a bloody scalp from a dangling piece of drop-ceiling.  Not too bad for my first frame.

Demolition Time

Having just put the finishing touches on my kitchen remodel, it was time to start forming a plan of attack for the basement.  The first step was to determine the extent of the damage from the water.  I pulled back a few panels.  I was hoping that if I found any decay or mold, I could just cut two feet of drywall off the bottom and replace it.  I could either mud it in or cover it with paneling or wainscoting.

What I found was discouraging.  There were traces of black mold on the areas of drywall that didn't even get that much water, and even worse, there was signs that it was in the wood.

Before this tear off, I didn't know how the basement was constructed or insulated, or if there was any at all.  I now could see that the previous owner used 1" x 3" strips anchored into the concrete with 3/4" foamboard.  None of the seams were taped, and the smaller boards explained why I couldn't find a decent stud to mount a shelf a few years before.

I took a couple days looking at designs online trying to figure out if I could salvage the existing framework.  That's when I was told by a very insistent wife that our children were no longer allowed in the basement now that there was a known case of black mold.  So, the next day, I took the day off of work and started demolition at 8 a.m.



Ripping off the bottom 2 feet




A look at the foamboard and frames.



The drop ceiling was a casualty of demolition.



The north wall where the flooding occurred.

In the end, I decided to just junk all of it.  Between the strange framework and the damaged drywall, it was better to start from bare walls and do it right.

One thing I wasn't expecting to find was a 2 inch section of concrete missing against the north wall.  It was loose gravel.  I can only assume that when the previous owners put in the interior tiling, there was a conscious decision to not fill that over with concrete.  I can't understand why.  Would it be so that water coming down the wall could flow down into the ground and hopefully into the tiling system?  Allow air flow?  It didn't make sense.  Every video I've watched shows fresh concrete going back over top of the gravel above the tiles.  I consulted my cousin who's a builder, and he didn't see anything wrong with patching it, so I threw a layer of Quikpatch concrete over the stones.

It's a good thing I listened to my frantic wife.  Here's a shot of the black mold, now safely outside the house in a dumpster:





I now have a swimming pool in my yard

As winter of 2011 came to a close, the sump pump finally kicked on.  As the snow melted and the spring rains came, it was good to know that the system that was installed was working.



The kids love their new pool

 Originally, we talked about what we could do with the water from the sump.  Maybe make a rain garden.  Save it and use it to keep the grass green.

But reality soon sunk in -- there was so much water in the yard that I now had a huge pond of water wherever I diverted the sump lines.  The kids loved it, but I didn't.  The water just sat there, eventually sinking into the ground and heading right back to the sump pump where it would get discharged into the yard again.

At this point I decided to get the water as far away from the house as possible.

The plan called for connecting the discharge lines directly into the city's storm sewer.  About 7 months prior, the plumbing company left a hook-up to the sewer about 50 feet from the house.  I would just need to route all the pipes into the 4" drainpipe.  Sounds easy enough, but that meant a) changing the interior pipes, b) removing a concrete sidewalk where the pipe would go, c) burying 4" sewer pipe about 40 feet, d) replacing the concrete sidewalk.  I started work in early April and finally finished in mid July.

Step one: the sump line moved from the east side of the house to the south part of the house.  I learned that you can't drill through a glass window to discharge your line.

A picture of the old sidewalk and deck when we moved in.  The sump pipe came out right where the blue garbage can is.  The sidewalk was destined to be removed, since it was all heaved and nasty from being poured on clay, not sand.

Step 2: Excavating the concrete

Clay galore.  Not fun to dig out.

Laying the 4" sewer pipe.

The sod went right back on top of the pipe -- hardly noticeable that any construction was done.

Laying the fine gravel and sand for the new paver walkway.  I managed to connect the downspouts into the same sewer line.

Another look at the walkway before the pavers went in.

Installing the pavers.

I put two centennial hop plants and some left over annuals in the new space next to the garage.

A look at the finished walkway.

Pavers close up.  Renting a nice wet saw was the best decision of the project.

That's it!  Now that the water will be safely diverted away from the house, it's just a matter of sitting back and seeing if all the basement stays dry.

Grading

It's July, 2010.  My newly installed sump hasn't kicked on once.  It's dry as a bone now in my yard as the heat yellows my grass.

I'm still in a holding pattern as far as the basement's concerned.  I know I can't put any work into it since I don't know if our solution has offically worked or not.  I won't know until the next spring when the rains arrive.

I walk around the yard and one thing becomes really clear -- our house was graded horribly.  There are parts where the ground visibly slopes back toward the house, allowing water to run toward the house.  One such area is the living room which lies right above the home theater room where all the flooding occured.  The landscaping is horrible, full of weeds, half-dead perennials, and uprooted plastic edging.  I tell my wife that I think we need to bring in dirt for that area and she gets an excited look in her eye.  By the next day, she has a huge plan for the whole new bed.


The old bed.  The ground slopes back toward the house.



Same bed, lots of ugly plants.

I took a week off in July from work.  Turns out, this would be the hottest week of the year.  I went through gallons of water each afternoon and gallons of beer each night and didn't urinate once.

The first step was cutting out about 150 sq ft of sod followed by digging out all the plants we wanted to save and splitting hostas from around the yard.  All the underground sprinklers had to get dug up and moved to their new positions.  Next, I brought in about 3 yards of dirt to mound against the side of the house to promote the proper grade to move water away from the house.

I extended the bed out about 8 feet and installed a new metal border.

Finally, I picked up a circular paver set from Menards and built it into the center of the new bed.

Finished bed.

North side of new bed.

The final result was a great success.  Now a year since installation, the plants have all doubled in size and are doing great in their new bed of nice black soil.

Where did the water come from, and how do I fix it?

It's ironic that we need water to survive; we recharge each morning with it in the shower, and curse the heavens when there isn't enough to provide for our lawn and plants.  But as any homeowner knows, water can be your biggest enemy in your house.  Just ask the people of New Orleans, or the Mississippi plane, or anyone with a broken pipe or leaky faucet.

The next few months were spent in anguish reassessing how to get water away from my house.

The first thing I did was talk to as many neighbors on my street.  I was actually really happy to find many who had similar stories to mine: during times of heavy, heavy rain, their basements would flood.

Part of it was certainly the soil.  Our subdivision was once a cow pasture, with a swamp at the end of the street.  The ground is all clay, which doesn't soak up and retain water.

But another problem was the sewers.  A neighbor across the street discovered this.  Frustrated that his basement would fill with water during heavy rains, he literally set up a lawn chair in his basement and watched it overnight, trying to understand what was happening.  He soon realized that the problem was from the water table being so incredibly high and saturated that the water would seep up through the floor of the basement.

When the contractors built most of our houses in the late 70's & early 80's, they put weeping tile around the exterior of the houses.  Not really a "tile" in the traditional sense of the word, it's a perforated plastic tube that lies next to the house, allowing water to seep into the tube.  Water will move horizontally toward the path of least resistance.  So, when it rains around your house, the water hits this tile and moves away from your house instead of pooling at the bottom and trying to bust through your concrete walls.  It's a great system that works wonderfully.

The issue in my neighborhood, however, is that when the builders hooked this tile into the main storm sewer lines, they ran it parallel to the 8 foot depth of the storm sewers.

On those rare occasions when the heavens opened up and it rained cats & dogs, the sewers would fill up faster than the water that was seeping though the soil around the houses.  The water would move toward the path of least resistance, which in this case was BACK TOWARDS the houses.  Each house would get so saturated around the base of the poured concrete that water would move up through any tiny crack it could find.  The fancy term for this is "hydrostatic pressure".

This brilliant neighbor called a large plumbing company, and they agreed: the only way to fix the problem would be to dig 8 feet into the earth, find this pipe, and cap it off.

It all made sense all of the sudden.  I knew the cause of the water, now it was time to fix it.

Being a guy who likes to do things myself, I looked around for evidence of the pipe.  I lifted up the grate of the catchbasin in front of the house hoping to find an inlet -- nope.  I pried up the manhole cover and peered down but quickly realized I had no experience in sewage removal and placed it right back where I found it.  Next I went to the township for plans.  All the plans were in the process of getting digitized, but our street had somehow gotten tossed years ago.  That lead me to the county road commission offices, who also couldn't help me.  They only had generalized plans for the whole storm sewer system, nothing as detailed as I needed.

The next day I saw a neighbor at the store and asked what company she'd used.  McDonald Plumbing, she said.  I set up a consultation appointment, and the head of the company arrived with plans of our neighborhood unlike anyone else.  Apparently, he'd somehow gotten a copy years ago from the original developers and was guarding the plans like a hawk.  He stepped off where he thought the pipe would be: directly under my driveway.  Well, I guess this wasn't a job I was gonna do myself.

I hired him on the spot.  A few weeks later, a caravan of large trucks and tractors showed up at my house.  A large backhoe began digging right next to the driveway and was able to access the pipe without having to tear up any concrete.  After about 30 minutes, he found the pipe, capped it off, and ran it straight to the surface, leaving it about a foot underground in case I needed to ever access it again.

Meanwhile, part two of the operation was installing a sump pump to get the water from the foundation out from the house.  After some investigation, it seemed that pervious owners of the house had flooding issues, because we found interior tiling around the edges of the walls.  Based on the cut lines in the concrete floor, we followed this all the way to a drainpipe by the washer/dryer.  They'd hooked this up to flow into the sanitary sewer many years before, a practice that is certainly illegal now.  McDonald installed the new sump in the ground, hooked it into the existing interior tiling, and ran the discharge out the side of my house toward my back yard.

It was done!  No longer would I have to worry about backflow issues.  Little did I know, the work was far from over...