New England Flood

M

matt_unique

New member
How did everyone fare in the storm? We awoke yesterday to high water alarms in the house. By the worst of it we had 18" in the basement. Ugh....

We don't have a sump pump (no floods in the 5 years we have been in the house) and of course there were no pumps to be bought or rented within 100 miles.

I finally resorted to boat technology and we beat it back. I bought two 1500 GPH Surflo pumps with hose fittings such that I could attach the garden hose. I had Napoleon's batteries charged and in the basement ready to go for Spring. With careful timing, switching the bats, and charging I was able to keep the pumps running all night long. Today will involve more time with the wet-dry vac but we will have it cleaned up.

No fun...I hope others did better. There were evacuations in some neighborhoods just a few towns over. There were instances of SUV's submerged to the top of their windshields and the whole thing.
 
Boy, I can sympathize with that Matt. Our old house in Stafford VA had a basement that did that about once every 6 years or so. I finally cut a square out of the 6" concrete floor and put in a sump pump. Of course, without a generator, if the power went out, it still did it.

We have a little sump pump here and the water table is so high right now that it runs every 10 minutes or so. Only pumps about 2 gallons each time. And, we have a whole house autostart generator.

Sounds like you made the best of a bad situation. Hope you didn't have a "finished" basement and that not too much stuff got ruined.

Charlie
 
Thanks for the report and now you are on the MacGyver team.
:D
We lost a home in June 2008 to a flood (6' high inside) so my feelings go out to others. Our Fl home was hit by Hurricane Charley and met a lot of other folks who completely lost their homes and suffered. Oours was repairable. I wish the knew the name of the Florida Power and Light man who tried to restore our power line. He worked full time for days and lived out of his truck. While cleaning up after flood, a lady stopped by and gave me 2 gallons of water and a loaf of bread and said that is all I have to give you. Another nameless person who prvided acts of kindness. I hope to do the same
 
Matt: Glad to hear you are OK man. Was thinking about some of yall when watching the news. I know it is crazy how much 5, 10, & 15' elevation changes can make. When working some of the Katrina stuff, we could ride thru neighborhoods with the GPS on elevation and get a good rule of thumb what areas were going to need the largest amount of help... interesting that some of the folks on that little almost not noticeable rise in a neighborhood, ended up being the "primary care" home or dry house.

Thanks for posting you are OK.

Byrdman
 
Matt,

Sorry you had to go through that. Hope your efforts saved your basement. It's tuff to have to clean up after, but it's clean up not rebuild.

Good thinking with the batterys and pumps.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon
 
Thanks for the kind replies.

3 out of our 4 basement rooms are finished but thankfully the lowest room is unfinished. That one had the 18 inches of water. The finished rooms had 2-3 inches.

Another 'boat technology borrow' really saved us....last year our hot water heater let go and ruined the floors (carpet, some baseboard, etc.) Insurance covered the damage and we decided to have all the flooring ripped up and replaced with faux wood (Millwork Flooring). Basically the same stuff that goes on boats - all plastic with nothing to rot or absorb water. The underlayment is like thin bubble wrap so it cleaned up nice. I still have the pumps running today as we still have 6 inches of water in the lowest room but all the finished areas are dry. We could not see evidence of water lines on the baseboards. I stained them several times last year and perhaps that offered some measure of protection. We lifted all our furniture and appliances before water got to them.

Needless to say we will be installing a fixed AC water pump once they are available to purchase again. Home Depot and others will be out of stock for a while up this way.

Oh yeah we had a small sinkhole in the back yard...300 lbs of soil filled that in though.

I can't wait to work on Napoleon again instead of this house cleaning nonsense!

:D
 
Well 5 more inches of rain have fallen in a 24 hour period and we are back to pumping water and using the wet dry vac. Ugh...

We are supposed to have 5 days of sun and temps into the 70's by the weekend!

--Matt
 
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