My husband and I are gluttons for punishment...him more than myself. We own a couple of rental houses which are a constant work in progress. Not necessarily because of the houses themselves, but because of the tenants occupying them :) This is most certainly a learning process and we are more than likely making just about every mistake possible. With that being said, one of the houses is vacant. We took the opportunity to make this house a little more...bullet-proof, if you will :) Not real bullets, but trying to make it where it is hopefully indestructable to careless people. We have done a complete bathroom remodel (down to the studs) and laid porcelain tile in the kitchen. Lots of work, but it looks great! This house had an addition on the back and a large overhang over the patio. Jason tore ALL of that out! This weekend we tackled the leaking basement....
This home was build in the 20's with a concrete block foundation. What does that mean? It leaks. My parents watched the kids and we tackled the foundation...from the outside! Good thing our local Ace Hardware rents construction equipment because we needed a backhoe :)
It was scorching outside. All weekend. I talked to my sister in AZ while we were working...it was in the 70's there...how horrible is that? The job had to be done anyway :( We started digging up the dirt around the foundation, and found the majority of the soil was clay. Gummy, sticky, hard to dig away from the foundation, clay. We didn't let that stop us.
I called JULIE the week before to make sure all of the necessary lines were marked since we would be digging. Guess what didn't get marked? Of all things...the sewer line. Oh yeah, we hit it. In like 3 places :) Just a hiccup, and another run to Lowes, and it was repaired. Pretty gross though.
Once our trench was dug, we used masonary mix to repair any holes in the cinder blocks. Messy stuff. Once dried, we painted on a rubbery, foundation sealer to keep the water OUT! My over-achiever husband made us do 4 coats! Let me tell you, standing in that trench, surrounded by wasps (Jason got stung numerous times!) painting on black junk....felt like being on the surface of the sun...seriously!
After everything dried, and the sewer line had been repaired, it was time to fill in the trench. Thank God for that backhoe. I couldn't imagine doing all of that digging by hand. We leveled the yard, and fixed the downspouts. Now to finish the siding, paint the house, new steps off the back, and a handful of things inside.
I am VERY happy to report the basement is dry!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment