My goldfish pond

[CometKeith]

We had almost 5 inches of rain last night. Some places near us had up to 7 inches. My water level on the pond was low before the rain. Now it is up to the top! Any more rain and the fish would have been swimming in our yard!

 

[callingcolleen1]

Good Grief! All the rain is going to sweep everything away! Has it stopped yet?

 

[CometKeith]

yes, but it was probably the most rain I have seen in such a short period of time. Our phones woke us up a 4:03 AM with flash flood warnings and that was the end of our sleep for the night. I couldn't make a deposit at the bank by us because it was closed and then I saw them pumping water out of the basement later in the day. Our sump pump did not turn off all night and ran continuously with out stopping and our battery backup pump kept turning on too when the water got too high. If we didn't have the backup pump our basement would have been flooded for sure. Even parts of the expressways were closed today because of flooding, but our fish seemed happy... and there were lots of new lakes created all over our neighborhood especially in the nearby golf course and the birds had a good time!

 

[addy1]

That storm is heading here, we are getting predictions of just an inch though. It wore itself out on your area.

 

[CometKeith]

These buckets were empty before it started raining!

 

[j.w]

Whoa that's a bit of rain you had falling there Keith. Too bad you don't have some kind of collection basin to catch it all in for when your Summer heat beats down and tries to dry everything to a crisp!

 

[callingcolleen1]

So you have a sump pump in the basement, are you located at a low elevation or on a hill? Why I ask is just because I am curious, as I live down low near a creek but never have water problems, but have friends that live in two different nearby hill tops, and they must have a underground stream as lots of houses on that hill have sump pumps on duty. Lots more people have water in the basement trouble on the hills around here, then on the flats! Now why is that? Never could figure that out .....

 

[addy1]

Our house is on top of the hill, the water just flows down and around the house. So far never had a basement issue. A lot depends on where underground streams run.
If our house was at the base of the hill I am sure we would have issues. We get rivers running down the hill during hard rains.

 

[CometKeith]

Colleen, We have two pumps in our basement sump pump pit. One pumps to the street and there is a higher one that pumps outside the house that is on a back up battery. If the second one wasn't working we would have been flooded because the first one couldn't keep up. We are on flat ground, but have fairly large drain tiles that collect the water and sends it to the sump pump. The water flowing into the sump pump pit was almost like an open fire hydrant how fast water was rushing in. Lots of our neighbors flooded. There are garbage bags, pieces of furniture, and rolled up carpet everywhere. Where we live was not as bad as communities nearby that were by a river. The worse area by us was DesPlaines.

 

[j.w]

What a mess Keith. We are up on the top of a hill and down below us it does flood sometimes down by the river. We have gotten locked up here at times w/ no way out but nothing as bad as what you have there in Chicago. I was away from home for a trip to the store one day and couldn't get back home as the river had flooded over the road so I talked a trucker into driving his big rig through the water right past the blockade and the very mad state trooper flailing his arms at us to go back. The truckers tires were so high up that we had no problem going through. The cop stopped us when we got to him and told the trucker"I could have your license for this and a bunch of other stuff!" Then he just waved us through. I just had to get home to my kitties that were outside or the coyotes would eat them up at nightfall!

 

[callingcolleen1]

Terrible! Are the fish in your pond OK?

 

[CometKeith]

yes, the fish had a great time. The water was a little low because my bio-filter was leaking a little last week so it got nice and full with the rain. JW. That's a funny story! The problem is that so much of our area is paved there is not a lot of places for water to go anymore. Also they have built in flood plains because it made money. Now all these people that either bought homes or are renting close to a river get "swamped" with these 100 year rains that seem to come every few years now. It's hard to undo bad policies that were made 30, 40, or 50 years ago when they decided it was okay to build on land that would get flooded from time to time. We do have the deep tunnel project that was started 28 years at a cost of billions of dollars but they still haven't finished connecting the main reservoir and it won't be done for at least 16 more years! http://chicagoist.com/2012/05/24/one_for_the_road_the_deep_tunnel_pr.php

 

[CountryEscape]

Keith, I came home and checked my rain gauge from all last week. It had an even 4" in it. Not much water standing by the time I got home, though, so must have rained several days before Sat. Plants are all coming to life and tulips blooming, waited til I got home! When I mowed yesterday, I had to raise the mower deck 4 notches, and it was still too short for how much it had grown. Will have to mow again in a day or two, to try to lower the deck some. I do love how green it is, though. Hoping you start getting some warmer temps now that the rain has freshened everything up ... or at least I hope it works that way in the city.
Here, I live on flat ground, not even a ditch to pump water to. Sump pump pit also has a battery back-up (I installed it myself, then when main pump quit, I was a pro at replacing that, too!). Back up has only kicked on once since installed 3 years ago. When I rented, the basement drain had a natural drain over the hill close to the house. However, that house was 100 years old, and the walls had huge cracks, when it rained hard, there was water coming in like a drinking fountain! Could never put anything on the basement floors. There was a 3' ledge all the way around the outside edge, though, and besides where the cracks were, they stayed dry.

 

[CometKeith]

CE, I think the whole state got a lot of rain. Some of the flowers are just starting to peek above the ground here. It's a big difference from last year when everything was way ahead. We haven't even seen the Magnolias bloom yet this year. Basements and pumps can make you crazy because every situation is a little different. We just rehabbed a house and connected footing drains into a sump pump pit that pumped into the municipal sewers. Well there was so much water in the sewers after the heavy rain the other day that the sump pump ended up pushing the water up to the 2nd floor bathroom drains and the water flooded the house! Re the cracks at your old house, there is not a lot you can do if there is water under you house either from a high water table or an underground spring. People don't realize it, but most basement concrete floors are cracked and its not considered to be unusual at all. Its tough to pour cement for a long span like that and not have it crack. When we were building new houses we always put carpet down right away to hide the cracks because people would freak out if the basement floor was cracked even if it didn't hurt anything.

 

[CountryEscape]

Haha, that's funny to cover the cracks with carpet right away. I totally understand it, though. The basement of the house where I rented had really unique construction, I thought. It was a full basement, one end smaller than the rest of the house, but the whole perimeter of the basement walls had a 3' wide/deep (from the wall toward the middle of the room) ledge that was about 2' high, also made out of concrete. Someone told me they did it that way to hold the walls from falling in. Not sure, though. Anyhow, there was lots of fall away from the house on the back side, but the front where it leaked bad was low. I backfilled there to try to help the situation, but it still leaked bad. Probably no drain tile down at the footing level to move the water away. Nothing worse than having water get into your house and you can't do anything to push it away! I have my own pipe, if it clogs, I know where to look for it and fix it. Living out in the country has it's perks. My battery back up has not had to be used this time around. In fact, it only got put into use once, and that was when the main sump failed. Sure glad I put in the battery back up.