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The "Joys" of Home Ownership - Drainage

This technically is not a garden post.  It's April, it's snowing right now as I type.  We are supposed to have record lows this week.  Maybe my onions won't survive after all.  So far, they have survived!

While the garden is a big part of our outdoor living experience, we have lots of other stuff going on around our 1/3 acre (well, little less, there is a house on it). One of our MAJOR projects for the year is drainage.  Woo.

What is drainage? Hell if I know.  Kidding.  I do, it's just that it's so boring.

When you live in a place like Colorado, where there are basements, you have to make sure you have adequate draining around your house or all sorts of disasters can happen:

1. Foundation cracks - check
2. Pooling water in yard - check
3. Water leaking into basement
4. Other horrible expensive things

Let me give you a brief tour of what bad drainage looks like/leads to.

Exhibit A:  When you don't have a slope of dirt at a downward angle AWAY from the house (read: settled, flat dirt), water doesn't have a good place to go.  Except down, right next to the foundation.

Exhibit B:  If you are ever house hunting, what you see below is not optimal.  The previous owner, who was totally crazy (seriously, we have stories that shouldn't be shared with the public), did the cheap stopgap measure - attached a long tube and put it out in the yard away from the settled dirt and foundation.



Exhibit C:  And here is your end result.  Bad drainage = foundation crack.  Before you say, "Geez Adrienne, why did you even buy this dump?"  Let me explain.  First, we were concerned about the crack.  We had a structural engineer come out.  Since purchase, concrete guys and drainage guys have all looked at the crack.  Guess what? For a house built in 1964 and in Colorado, it's very, very common.  Furthermore, the crack is located right where the rebar is placed - again - very common crack.  Could we do nothing and the house will more than likely be fine for years to come? Sure.  But we are responsible home owners and we do not want to have something get worse because we were too lazy and cheap to take care of it.  We also hope to finish the basement some day.  So we want to make sure our foundation is in tip top shape. 

So our #1 priority, pretty much since we moved in, was to get the drainage fixed.  We have hired a contractor that will let us do some of the work ourselves and will then come out and do the professional install + let us help. 

It's a lot, but peace of mind is soooo worth it.  At least that's what I keep telling me.

So in coming weeks, I'll be chronically our journey of digging trenches, getting supplies, and putting in our awesome french drains.

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