Summer arrived in Chicago on Friday with a flurry and a lot of rain. It was the 20th wettest day on record (or so I heard on the radio) with about 4 inches of rain falling at O'Hare. As you know, I've had trouble with flooding in my basement during such downpours. To recap what I've done to combat the water: re-routed the roof water out of the cistern and into the back yard, regularly root out the drain pipes, and most significantly I had a four inch "step" built up outside my door where the rain comes in.
Well, it didn't work. It sort of worked though, so all is not lost. While I was on the phone with a plumber of all people, I swiveled on my exercise ball and saw water streaming in from the door. Ugh. After getting towels to control the water already inside, I went out and cleared away the top of the drain. It rained so hard that the water brought debris with it down to the drain and clogged the screen. The water backed up until it came in over the top of the step.
So a couple of positives: 1) I was home when it happened 2) the new carpet hasn't been laid yet 3) it wasn't that much water 4) the dam actually worked 5) I now know that I need to get a screen with bigger holes or remove the screen entirely. The debris will go down the drain, but that pipe goes straight to the main city pipe, so it doesn't really matter.
Friday then was obviously a bit hectic for me as you can imagine and that's why I didn't post. Saturday we had a softball tournament down in Crete Illinois where we came in third out of eight teams and had a lead in the last inning of the game we lost that would have gotten us second and a shot at first. The team played pretty well, but I hit like crap. This isn't the "main" team that I play on, but it's a lot of the same guys, though we play with different rules. One of them is the amount of arc allowed on the pitch and I'm having trouble identifying the strike zone. In several at bats on Saturday, in our four games in pretty warm weather, I swung at really bad pitches. Not sure how to solve this problem quickly......but I'm going to try and figure something out.
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3 comments:
I was thinking about you with that rain! That's great that a lot of the improvements you made made a difference. We too have done some things here which helped us out and we only got a tiny bit of seepage. Just a few inches in the shopvac instead of having to fill it numerous times!
That's it - no ground level/basement apartment in Chicago for me.
The water issue has to be more than frustrating. Hope you can get things solved soon.
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