Time to catch up on a few previous improvements we’ve already made. Part of the reason to write these down is to capture our progress – it can seem like there is so much to do, and the list keeps getting longer – but we are moving forward.
The day we closed on the house I found 2 inches of water in the basement and a lot of spiders.
I burned out my little drill-mounted pump and resorted to buckets before I thought to take this picture. There had been a lot of rain, and there are some very large gaps through which the water can come in. The downspouts all just drained next to the foundation, so I added some diverters to push the water away. No small part, though was the constant leak from the boiler’s pressure relief valve.
The recommendation from the HVAC technician was to drain the expansion tank first and see if that relieved the pressure. A slow process, but fairly straight forward. It didn’t help.
Next was having them in to replace it. Should have done the zone pump I told them about at the same time, but they would have to come back a week later to replace that when it failed.
After running the dehumidifier for a week and some quality time with a broom, we had a basement!
Those stone pillars near the stairs? The neighbors across the street have something similar in their basement, and it’s part of a massive fireplace. Taking a closer look at the ceiling over those pillars did show a patch to the sub-floor, so it seems like a good possibility. Back in the day, they had radiant heat in the cobblestone section!
My take away? I needed to get a real mask for the next project.
