For those of you that read the old blog, you should know that the house is coming along smashing. It really has been busy around here, yet I still feel like I have been slacking.
Two weeks ago I found mold and mildew in the basement. My brother and I ripped all of the drywall out that had mold and mildew on it in one day. It was quite the job and enjoy able work.
The following day, after gutting out part of the basement, the AC went out at the house. We only had one working, so then both were out. A few phone calls around led us to a guy that is HVAC certified. He is retired, so anything that required to much labor or to much cost he avoided. We got lucky and it was only $300 to get both of the ACs working.
A week passed and it rained a bit. I noticed that water was still showing up on the concrete wall in the basement under the window. I get to thinking about several things. My father-in-law pointed out that one of the gutter down spouts was spraying water out of one of the seems, and it might be clogged. This is right by the bay window.
So off to work I go again. I dig up two of the bushes under the bay window. One of them was a rose bush, and was a pain to get out. I also broke my hedge shears so I had to get them replaced.
A few more days later and I was able to get the other three bushes out of the ground. Then I dug up the black flex pipe that they had attached to the down stem of the gutter. This ran for about 5 or 6 feet out into the yard.
Problem was that it was buried. Just like deltas at the end of a river, dirt was carried down to the end of the pipe and started clogging it up. Let me go a head and tell you that there is red clay in GA. The clay doesn’t really do a real good job of giving way to water.
So with all of this, I have a pipe that is now still laying in the ground, part of a dug up yard that will need to be filled back in, and a wait for a good rain to see if digging up the pipe and allowing water to escape it will really do the trick for keeping the basement dry. Needless to say, I have been waiting a few days for this to happen. With rain all over the Atlanta, GA metro area, I have only gotten a little shower at the house.
The other thing could be that it is puddling up to much by the basement door. This will be an easy fix if this is the case. Just take some of that clay and grade the land away from the house. Pack the clay in good and tight. Give it a good soaking to help the clay settle into place and let dry in the sun.
So that has been the house for the past month or so. I still feel like I have been slacking though. I have yet to get started torching again. I’m going to have to force myself to get the bench set back up and light the torch up. Will be good for me to get that done. Now just to figure out where to put the toilet that is outside now.