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My basement flooded last night. I saw it coming around 9 PM and started using a rug-washer as a water-pump, but the washer couldn't keep up, so around 11 PM I declared a "family emergency" and everyone had to help out getting stuff off the floor in the basement.
Thankfully the water level crested only a couple of inches above the floor, so the furnace continued working through the night. Apparently only the very bottoms of the expensive washer+dryer got wet, so hopefully they'll continue to work. The wooden bases under the bookshelves were submerged, but the water didn't get up to the books, so we didn't lose any of those.
I drove down to my local Home Hardware today and got a water pump. They tried to charge me $107, as shown on that web-page, but the price tag on the pump said $92 so I got it for that price.
Not mentioned on that page: the pump comes with a "suction plate" that allows it to continue pumping until the water is only ⅛ inch deep—very nice! But the pump is not rated for continuous duty: its instruction manual warns of overheating and suggests running it only 15 minutes per hour. I've been running it for a ½ hour at a time; it seems to be doing okay because the water is cold.
But I still need a sump pump. I've been putting that off since Sept. '07 and clearly I have put it off too long already. A sump pump needs a sump and apparently a sump needs a permit from the township because it involves digging.
My parents' house used to flood all the time because the neighbour's willow tree was clogging the drain. After many years (and many metre-deep floods and many books lost), they finally got a sump pump. But one day, during some torrential rains, the sump pump couldn't keep up and water rose out of the sump and spread over the floor—so once again all toys had to be picked up off the floor before they got soaked. Finally the neighbour got rid of his tree and all was right with the world.
So even with a sump pump, I might still need this new pump I just got, to help out during super-heavy rains.
Thankfully the water level crested only a couple of inches above the floor, so the furnace continued working through the night. Apparently only the very bottoms of the expensive washer+dryer got wet, so hopefully they'll continue to work. The wooden bases under the bookshelves were submerged, but the water didn't get up to the books, so we didn't lose any of those.
I drove down to my local Home Hardware today and got a water pump. They tried to charge me $107, as shown on that web-page, but the price tag on the pump said $92 so I got it for that price.
Not mentioned on that page: the pump comes with a "suction plate" that allows it to continue pumping until the water is only ⅛ inch deep—very nice! But the pump is not rated for continuous duty: its instruction manual warns of overheating and suggests running it only 15 minutes per hour. I've been running it for a ½ hour at a time; it seems to be doing okay because the water is cold.
But I still need a sump pump. I've been putting that off since Sept. '07 and clearly I have put it off too long already. A sump pump needs a sump and apparently a sump needs a permit from the township because it involves digging.
My parents' house used to flood all the time because the neighbour's willow tree was clogging the drain. After many years (and many metre-deep floods and many books lost), they finally got a sump pump. But one day, during some torrential rains, the sump pump couldn't keep up and water rose out of the sump and spread over the floor—so once again all toys had to be picked up off the floor before they got soaked. Finally the neighbour got rid of his tree and all was right with the world.
So even with a sump pump, I might still need this new pump I just got, to help out during super-heavy rains.
