Episode #11 Water Water Everywhere & ITB Construction Continues

Our Country Cottage a Narrative

Water Water Everywhere describes what can happen if the natural flow of water is not taken into account during the design stage and ITB, In The Beginning, carries on to the end of the first year of construction. In previous episodes I have mentioned how we controlled outside water and how we improved the original water control design, or lack there of. It started one day during the early construction stages. We had driven up to our country cottage to see the progress. Things had been moving along at a good clip for a while. In fact it was less than a week since our last visit, but something was different. First we noticed that no one was there, then we noticed a large pool of water in front of the garage. The forms for the garage floor were still in place, as the cement for the floor had been poured a couple of weeks earlier. They were almost submerged. There was a two foot wide sink hole across the drive where the water pipe and cables had been trenched and filled in a while ago. The supports for a fifth wheel trailer had sunk into the ground and the bottom of the trailer was resting on the dirt. There were pools of water all over and it seemed everywhere the ground had been disturbed it had dropped a couple of feet. Getting up to the door was a bit of a stretch. Everything had settled. Once inside, the crawl space hatch revealed that the water was inside as well, and at the same level that it was outside. The crawl space had about two or three feet of water in it. Once the cover had been pried up to the utility room it revealed about six or seven feet of water. The floor to the utility room was about four feet lower than the crawl space and all the water was at the same level. I called the site supervisor and told him we had six or seven feet of water in the utility room. He said he would come out and evaluate the situation and figure out what he would need to get the water out. He later revealed me that, when I first called him, he didn’t really believe what I had told him about the amount of water, saying that most home owners tend to exaggerate in these situations. It wasn’t until he dropped a saw horse into the utility room and watched it disappear below the water that he realized I was telling him the truth. There was no equipment in the utility room, still early construction, but the sump tub had been installed and hooked up to the weeping tile. I figure it was the weeping tile that gave water the way in and as the outside ground was saturated with rain and spring run off it just did what water does, and found its natural level. I’ll just go over the weeping tile concept once again for those of you that missed it the first time. Weeping tile is a large flexible pipe with holes in it that is laid around the foundation of a house to collect water and get it away from the foundation. It is one of the main reasons basements are dry. In the city, the weeping tile is connected to the storm drain system and water drains away through that. At our country cottage, the weeping tile was put around the foundation and fed to the sump tubs. The sump tub would have an electric sump pump to pump the water through a pipe to the outside so that it would drain off on the downward side of the cottage. At the time of the flood, the sump pumps were not installed and even if they were, there was no electricity to power them. I also have serious doubts that they would have been able to handle the amount of water they would have had to handle, anyway. Our country cottage was a very depressing place at this time. The snow had gone, leaving uncovered construction garbage among the mud and sink holes. A plan was devised to correct the water drainage situation and prevent it from happening again. It took a while to get the water out as it was still the rainy season and water was still finding its way in. About two weeks after finding the place full of water an excavator showed up to start correcting the problems. I was impressed with the size of the thing. It was a CAT 322B, not a small device. The ground was dug up and the weeping tile was redirected away from the cottage and “day lighted” in the middle of the toboggan run south or the cottage heading downward to the valley. There were mounds of mud everywhere. I was told the weeping tile was covered with lots of gravel to aid drainage and then filled in. Four or five days after the excavator showed up, a bulldozer (a CAT 955L) showed up to contour the ground and direct surface water in the future. A swale was put in north of the garage and down the west side of the cottage that would handle most of the water that would drain from the land north of the buildings. A swale is sort of a wide ditch or depression that gives water a path to follow and bypass the buildings. The dozer/excavator operator really knew what he was doing and did a great job for us. It took a couple of weeks to get the weeping tile and contouring done. The excavator was on the property for over a month. At least we had plenty of room for this sort of stuff. It was at this time that a trough was put in the full width of the garage and connected to the weeping tile system with a grate on top. This would handle all the water the drive, beside the cottage, would collect and any water the swale didn’t handle. One problem. The water would freeze in the trough, blocking the drainage. I realized this the first winter when it did freeze and it took several hours just to chip the ice away from on top of the trough to get to it and another hour or so of our contractor with a texas tourch, basically an open nozzle connected to a propane tank, to thaw it out. There are still chips in the cement where the axes, shovels and whatever would move ice went past the ice. A heater trace was put in the full length of the trough and all the way to the weeping tile. I turn this on manually in the spring, when needed. The heat trace is kind of neat, in that, when turned on, only the sections needed, will heat up as required, not the full length all the time. Every foot or so there are sensors that determine weather it needs to turn on or not. Smart wire, cool. Did all this work? Well, so far, yes. The most I have seen to date is the sump filling up to the weeping tile level in the utility room. The sump pump was set to turn on if it ever got higher than the weeping tile and has yet to do so. The trough in front of the garage has handled major rain downpours with no problem. When the ground does get saturated a pool forms for a short while and the weeping tile redesign takes care of it. If you are building your own country cottage it would pay to evaluate the lay of the land and any path water might have to take. It would have been much more cost effective to have this all figured out before buildings are built. And now ITB - In The Beginning Construction Continues I have been going through my pix and related dox and hopefully got most of the story for this part together. A lot was going on from time to time and I wasn’t keeping a written daily log. So here is my best shot Oh, just to mention that many times we would go to the site only to find no one there. It would take some poking around to see if anything new had been done. Now on with… Month #9 I was out of town for the first half of the month and when I returned a new coat of snow covered the ground. The first trip up to see the progress on the property found new snow but not enough to cover the construction scrap and garbage. The ground was very messy. The cottage and garage had most of the metal roofing installed and some interior framing had been done. There were actually people there, working. Four trucks were in the drive. Siding was going on and other stuff, too. I think this was the most activity we saw during the whole project. Might explain the mess. The next visit saw the masonry heater kit show up. It sat outside on the dirt for about a month and a half. This was the end of winter and I took the opportunity to get a six foot snow blade for my skid steer, delivered, ready for next season. The end of the month found us trying to select bricks for the masonry heater. This turns into another story on its own. Month #10 Started well with the arrival of the trail cams I had ordered. It also found us trying to figure out two pieces of equipment that no one could identify with. I had thought they belonged to our first site supervisor who had passed, but it became evident they were not. These were not small items, a skid steer loader and a rather large flatbed trailer. Yup another story. The folding doors that separate the sun room from the living room were installed. These were heavy duty exterior folding doors that would let us keep the sun room unheated through the winter but let us open up the space in summer. Decking was going on around the cottage, along with the stairs to get up to the garage loft. The garage cement floor had been poured. It was actually getting its final smoothing while we were there. I noticed that there was some electrical and plumbing ruff ins done and there was insulation put over the gravel in the crawl space ready for the floor to be poured. Things were moving along. Then the flood happened. Yes, the one that was described at the beginning of this podcast. Month #11 The grass was green but pretty soggy. The county property inspector had left a nice long list of items to be seen to. At this point this was not my concern. The poles and cables for the solar panels were lying on the ground ready to be installed. The grounds were looking a bit tidier. The excavator showed up and the south side of Our Country Cottage turned into piles of muck and mud for several weeks. It was during the later part of this month that the masonry heater construction took place along with the drama it created. The end of the month was sunny with the pools of water receding. Month #12 The solar panel poles had been installed and were being held vertical with several straps while the cement cured. The upstairs bath tub was installed on its pedestal, so we could look out the window while having a soak. That wouldn’t be for awhile, yet. As the month progressed the HVAC duct work was installed along with vent fans and other framing and electrical ruff ins. The straps disappeared from the solar panel poles. The crawl space and battery room floor got poured and the battery room was framed. The plumbing for the showers also were installed, once we figured out where we wanted the taps and shower heads to go and which end the seat in the shower stalls would be so the correct inserts could be ordered. During this period the front of our country cottage was a changing landscape of rising and falling piles of dirt but it all settled down by the end of the month, looking rather nice. So that concludes the first year of construction. From the outside Our Country Cottage and its garage were looking fairly complete with only bits on siding and most of the trim yet to be installed. The main garage door was also not installed, along with some cement work and all the steps up to the decks. The interior was far from complete, no drywall, no flooring. Etc,etc,etc Power, water and septic seemed along ways away. Next podcast we will carry on “In The Beginning” with year 2, or as much as I can stand, and the tale of the masonry heater. For pictures and more info, you can visit our website at “ourcountrycottageanarrative.com” If you have any comments, questions or if you would like to be added to the “Friends of OCCaN” Our Country Cottage A Narrative, mailing list, you can email me at [e-mail]. Members on the mailing list will get website and podcast updates as soon as I do :). The, Our Country Cottage a Narrative, podcast is on iTunes , Stitcher and Google Play so you can subscribe there and get the podcast downloaded automatically when they get released. Till next time have a good one.