Tuesday, February 07, 2017

Fighting The Urge To Flood

Today in my never-ending war against the Sacramento Valley floodplain, I learned that completely replacing my sewage system only aggravated the flooding in the concrete basin under my back porch. The sewage pipe that opens there (dating to 1908, when the house was built) is now completely orphaned, which frees it up to convey water straight from the Ur-Water-Demon that lives in a wet cavern next to an underground river running deep, deep below my house.

Normally, I'm content to bail the water out with the aid of a bucket and a wheelbarrow, but the water was running alarmingly fast. (In the days when sewage came out of the pipe, it seemed inadvisable to empty the basin with a sump pump, because sump pumps are powerful, and firing sewage around the neighborhood at awesome flow rates seemed un-neighborly.) So, at 6 a.m. this morning, I tried to hook up an old sump pump I had (and had almost forgotten about), but I had the wrong fittings. I fired the water at high pressure into my face instead.

So this afternoon I went to Brothers Plumbing, got the fittings, bought a new hose, set it up, and now have a more-efficient way to propel away the water the Ur-Water-Demon sees fit to send me.

And the war continues....

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