Well, last night was exciting. I was planning on a relaxing evening watching more Buffy episodes, but just after my last post we had a thunderstorm - had to bail out and shut down the computer real quick. At around 8pm we noticed that the rain was VERY hard, and there was a large lake on our back deck - the concrete part. It was spilling into the flower beds under the windows, and had filled them up. Way up. I walked thru the lake and saw that the water was 4" up the vinyl siding in the bottom corner, where the two (2) drains were apparently both clogged. This, of course, flooded the sunken conversation pit.
About 3 years ago it flooded, and we did major water control along the other side of the house, completely re-landscaped, etc - none of this helped in the least. The water is coming thru the fence from our neighbors, running over/through the deck, then onto the concrete, where it skirts the pool and empties into the flower beds. Then it gets deep enough to run over the walkway, but by then it is far up the house, over the foundation.
It then fills the vents under the floor - there must be a number of leaks. Once the vents fill, it overflows into the den, even while the water is seeping in around the foundation of the fireplace. Double whammy.
What this all boils down to is that I spent 3+ hours last night with the shop vac, a 16 gallon model, which I had to lift out of the sunken den (4" drop), roll across the carpet, through the kitchen, out the back door, and dump on the deck. By then, the water level had dropped and was no longer running across the concrete, so I figured the drain under the deck was working fine. Took over 15 trips - I lost count. I cleared the floor and then tried to empty the vents - which took all but two of those trips. Lots of water in the vents. I'll finish up tonight, most likely, unless we get that sort of a storm again. *sigh*
Plans to correct this? Clean the drains? The blockage is farther than I can reach, and stronger than my drain snake.
Install a drainpipe - this might work. We'll see.
