The room I use as my bedroom was an addition to the house and is built into the hill. That had never caused any problems before, but last year the french drain plugged up and it flooded. So we borrowed Jack's backhoe and dug it out and replaced the drain on both sides of the room and re-waterproofed those areas, since that was what flooded.
It's rained for the last two days and this morning when I got out of bed I put my foot down in a puddle. This time it's the back of the room, the part dug deepest into the hill. Oh, joy. The foundation blocks are covered by dirt, so we've been digging them out with shovels to hopefully keep it from getting worse and maybe route some of the water off to the sides. Still raining, so we can't get the backhoe up on the hill right now, we'll have to wait until it dries and the ground hardens some. I'm using the shop vac to suck the water up in my room, only had to empty it three times so far.
Because of the way this room is dug in to the hill it's colder than the rest of the house, so it's carpeted,mainly to keep me from freezing in the winter as it's also farthest from the heat. Guess I'll be going shopping for new carpeting again this year. Sigh.
So far none of the furniture is damaged, and I've dragged the most vulnerable pieces into a safe area. Including my computer, so light blogging until it's all back together as I dislike using this machine.
Home ownership can be a real pain. Times like this I wish I could just call the landlord.
If you can afford it, once you fix the water problem, you might want to look at under floor heat and either floating or glue down laminate wood instead of the carpet. Under floor heats not cheap, and not always wasy to put in, but the warm floors are SO worth it.
ReplyDeleteI considered that after last year's french drain problem but was afraid to make that investment in case it happened again. And, while I think it's not really likely, I'd rather not wake up to a shocking puddle. Although I do dream about warm floors.
ReplyDeleteDepending on what your sub floor is, and if you don't mind raising the floor level a bit, seal it in a layer of concrete (some are better rated for wet spaces like bathrooms too), thats what code requires here for "wet zone radient heat", the put the flooring on top.
ReplyDeleteWow, I need to investigate that more because it would really be lovely to have warm feet in the winter.
ReplyDeleteIf you or yours are handy its not that HARD, though I recommend an actual electrician for that part (depending on the total coverage you might have to add a breaker), but it does require time spent on knees laying it out, then covering with a layer of self-leveling concrete, which takes several hours to dry before floor can be laid out on it.
ReplyDeleteDo some shopping around for the heating elements, both Lowes and Home Depot carry some, at least online, but theres a huge selection of brands and styles out there for all sorts of applications.
We've got it in our master bath and it was so worth it!