Waterworld, part 3

[cathyr19355]

I was in the basement just now, attempting to get the several gallons of water absorbed by my throw rugs *out* of the throw rugs, when I noticed that the floor way, way beyond the rug was wet! Horrors! Could this mean the water had encroached even farther than I thought?

It could have, but it didn't. Closer inspection shows that when the wet-dry vac I have is sucking water out of a rug, instead of slurping up actual puddles, it throws a spray of water *out the back vent*. The harder I was scrubbing the rug, the more I was sprinkling the tile behind me.

Whimper....

Comments

[ddelony.livejournal.com]

Out in California most people don't have basements. How high is the water table out there?

[landley.livejournal.com]

In Austin we haven't got basements because we're on granite. (You need drilling and explosives to install a swimming pool, let alone a basement.)

[cathyr19355.livejournal.com]

On the bright side, it means that you can't have basement leaks because, hey, no basement. On the other hand, it means less room in your house, unless you build a house with a bigger footprint (though in Austin you can do that; there's plenty of real estate).

[ddelony.livejournal.com]

I imagine that not having a basement in a tornado-prone state would be a real gamble.

[landley.livejournal.com]

Actually we have hills to our west so storms big enough to produce tornadoes are shunted north of us, where they hit a town along I-35 called Jerrold. (Which has been leveled by tornadoes something like three times, yet they keep rebuilding it...)

[cathyr19355.livejournal.com]

I have no idea how high the water table is in the vicinity of my house; that sort of thing varies a lot out here in the East.

I can tell you this; my house is a split-level. The room that is the basement, as measured from the front of the house, is actually ground-level in the back, because the house was built into the side of a hill. We have been here since 1996, and the basement used to be bone dry. Even now, it only leaks after a prolonged rain (like, say, steady rain for most of 24 hours).

Even if you had basements in California, I'd bet you don't get rain in those quantities.