Who knew?

Christmas day we had a leaky basement this year. After some mild panic attacks on our part it turned out not to be too serious. It was caused by the downspout outside not being properly connected to move water away from the house, combined with buckets of rain that were falling and a tonne of snow melting and a patch that a previous owner had applied and was starting to fail.

We didn't worry about it much, but my parents provided us with "some anti water leak cement stuff" to fix it up. Being that this week I'm between jobs (and REALLY looking forward to starting new one Monday) I've decided to cross a few things off my list, and repairing the previous owner's patch in our leaky basement is one of them.

Now, those who know me know that I'm not a girlie girl. I have no fear of getting dirty or operating power tools, or in this case mixing some cement compound. I built a bird house when I was 5 with my dad, and I was the one operating the jigsaw. So, last night while Dave was at work I decided to tackle the patch job.

I swiftly and almost effortlessly broke up the old patch with a hammer, taking layers of paint with it. (ok I'll admit it was even a bit cathartic!) After sweeping it clean I went upstairs to mix the cement.

Now the can says to get it to a "putty like consistency" and I did just that. There were no lumps in sight and it was perfect putty. I brought it downstairs, ready to pour it, and thought "hmm I should get some more of the peeling paint away so it has a better chance to bond to the floor surface. I ran, full tilt upstairs to grab the wire brush and came back down, brushed the paint in a couple of spots and went to pour the cement. All of this took less than a minute.

I turned the container upside down, only to discover my "perfect putty" was perfectly solid.

A few swear words and a great deal of elbow grease later and I had at least the top part of the container back to putty consistency, even though it was much lumpier this time, and the bottom was solid as a rock. I poured it over the area, and smoothed it with my putty knife.

So can anyone tell me why I, an allegedly smart person (two degrees, relatively handy with the repairs) didn't think to consider "cement = gets hard really fast"? Seriously!

Oh well, it looks good for now, and I'll probably put another patch on top to be sure it's well covered and won't surprise us again.

We had a wet (basement) Christmas

I was thinking Christmas this year would be fairly quiet without too many stories to share. Pretty naive of me, eh?

We had planned for a quiet morning at our house, the rest of the day at my parents' place with the family all coming over for Christmas dinner. Finally, we would come home and pass out from all the delicious food mum and everyone prepared and tired after a full day.

Unfortunately the homeownership gods decided to play pranks on us. We got home, stuffed and tired, and very much looking forward to bed. Knowing we were heading out tomorrow morning to see Dave's family we started to clean up the house and I was cleaning the litterbox upstairs, but it needed more litter so I went down to the basement to get some.

Our basement is unfinished, and full of boxes so I couldn't see that well and went to turn on another light when I noticed a distinct squishing sound under my foot. The squishing sound was complemented by a cold, wet feeling on that foot. I foolishly took another step, and lo and behold my other foot was wet now too.

At this point I didn't know what it was. I kinda swore and thought "not pee again!" but then realized that the area that was wet was bigger than all our animals' bladders combined. The water was up and over top of my toes.

After some humming, hawing, and swearing we decided the carpet and underpad (you know, the one I spent $30 cleaning not a few weeks ago) wasn't salvageable so we started tearing it up with an exacto knife and putting it in big garbage bags. In the process we uncovered the source of the leak; a crude patch applied by a previous owner. When you stepped on this patch it squeezed up a bit of water. I feel like calling up the guy and thanking him for the Christmas present but Dave said I'm not allowed.

Dave sopped up water with the mop while I ran around to the neighbours hoping one of them would have a ShopVac we could borrow. Sadly no one was home save the creepy drunk weirdos 2 doors down. (the good news is that their place looked empty so maybe we're getting a new year's present- new tenants there)

We continued with the mopping and cutting of carpet and underpad. We've left the patch on for now but will take it off when we get back from visiting Dave's family on the 28th. I'm just glad to have had the chance to scrub my feet clean of the basement water cocktail.

Hopefully the fans we have going and dehumidifier down there will get it drier. Ah the joys of homeownership. We're really lucky to have a house of our own, I just wish it didn't come with a leaky basement. On the plus side Dave says "Yay we have our own swimming pool!" Just not the one we had in mind.