Neurotic with a purpose (maybe)…

As part of our house contract, Trevor and I negotiated $6,500 off the price of the house to make some repairs – most of them water-related (gutter installation, adding dirt to parts of the backyard so the ground would slope away from the house, etc.). The house we purchased was built nearly six decades ago, and recently gutted and redone on the inside. But since I have a completely RATIONAL fear of water – especially after the great flood of 2006 – I wanted the water-related items to be taken care of ASAP.

Okay, okay – only I refer to the big rain that March as the great flood of 2006. But it is the water event that broke the White Rock spillway and when I took THESE pictures.

It is also when my fear of water (think: drainage) was first realized.

If I posted about this back in 2006, I cannot find it. This is strange because the events of that spring irritated me to a whole new level – the kind of thing I usually memorialize on my blog. Sigh…whatever.

Anyway, that spring, the City of Dallas was replacing the 80 year old water mains that ran beneath the streets of my current neighborhood. The project was taking months to complete, and was affecting both the streets and the alleyways behind the houses.

Although the water main replacement was annoying, I understood why it needed to be done and appreciated the City’s attention to the problem. That is, until they started to work in the alleyway directly behind my house, and things got a little hairy.

Apparently, something major was going on pipe-wise behind my house, because the work was focused there for weeks – much longer than any other house on my block. And since the alleyway is a relatively narrow space and tractors were involved, it wasn’t long before my fence started to suffer the consequences of being located on the perimeter of a construction zone. Granted, the wood fence was nearing the end of it’s life, but – at the time – it was still in fairly decent shape. The worst of the boards had been replaced prior to my moving in, and the fence was sturdy enough to withstand my dogs (Gypsy Kitty and Dolly at the time) jumping on it during their daily squirrel hunts.

A couple of weeks after the work commenced in my alleyway, I came home to discover a five foot section of my fence completely collapsed. The dogs had been left in the backyard that day, and easily could have escaped through the giant opening. Luckily, both dogs stayed put because they were too scared of the noisy tractor that had been responsible for the damage in the first place. Thank goodness for wimpy canines, huh?!

I signaled to the tractor driver through the gaping hole in the fence, and he stopped what he was doing, turned off the tractor’s engine and came over to talk to me. He apologized for knocking down the section of fence, and offered to shore it up with the dental floss he kept in the glove compartment of his pickup truck. Yes, you read correctly: Dental Floss. No, he was not kidding.

Amazing.

Since I had little faith that dental floss would hold a very heavy section of wood fence together for any amount of time, I called the foreman in charge of the project. After a long argument about whether or not his workers were responsible for the damage or not (according to him, my fence was just old and it was nothing more than a coincidence that it chose to fall apart when work was being done nearby. That is, until I reminded him that the tractor driver had already admitted to knocking it down), he agreed to add a couple of support beams to hold the fence upright so the dogs wouldn’t be able to get out. By no means was this a permanent solution. It was, however, the best I was going to get from of the City of Dallas.

After the fence had been shored up, the work continued in the alleyway. To access the pipes, the workers had to dig a large hole in the ground. The excavated dirt was placed against the entire length of my fence.

Then, the great flood of 2006 happened.

For over 80 years (the house I’ve been renting was built in 1925), the backyard had sloped away from the house and into the alleyway. However, when the great flood occurred, the dirt from the water main project in the alley had created a makeshift dam. The water in my backyard had no where to drain, and built up like a lake until it finally changed direction (literately changing the slope of the yard) and flowed underneath the house.

Disaster.

Long story short: at the conclusion of the water main project, my landlord was forced to not only replace the fence but install French drains and a sump pump as well. Literately thousands and thousands of dollars of repairs thanks to the City of Dallas. Of course, the City never took responsibility for any of it. According to them, they cannot be held liable for acts of God. The dirt piled up against my broken fence didn’t help, though.

Anyway, fast forward to 2009: The new house has some minor drainage issues, which is why we asked the sellers to come down on the price. Gutters came highly recommended from the inspector – especially in one place between the study and the master bedroom. The roof above is kind of in sections which come together and meet at this particular point. When it rains, the water gets channeled down the roof to this corner and shoots off (in dramatic waterfall fashion) onto the ground below. Over the 55+ years since the house was built, heavy rains have created a low point in the lawn at this spot, and some of the water had recently started going underneath the house.

Not good.

Because I am neurotic, we paid a structural engineer to come over and assess the problem during our option period. I wanted to make sure that the water that HAD gotten underneath the house had not caused any irreversible damage to the house or it’s foundation. It hadn’t – although the structural engineer echoed the inspector’s gutter and drainage recommendations.

So far, this spring has been fairly dry. Normally, March-June is the rainy season for Dallas, followed by July and August which are essentially hot, dry and sunny. I still wanted the gutters up as soon as possible, though. I don’t mess around with water and drainage issues. Water under a house is nothing to joke about. This was one problem I planned to nip in the bud as quickly as possible.

We closed on Thursday afternoon, and Trevor started scheduling workers first thing on Friday morning. The gutter guy was scheduled for Monday.

And Saturday? Yeah, we had a major rain event here in Big D. Not as bad as the great flood of 2006, mind you, but it still made headlines. And for most of it, Trevor and I could do nothing but sit in our empty, new house and watch the water shoot off the roof in torrents and form a lake in the low place between the study and master bedroom.

Finally, I recommended that Trevor take our 30 gallon, plastic trash bin out and place it underneath to catch some of the roof runoff. But it was raining so hard that the entire bin would fill up approximately every three or four minutes. Trevor and I were both soaked, but felt like we were at least doing something proactive. After all, the water collected in the bin was water that wasn’t destined to go underneath the house.

Later that night and into Sunday morning, it continued to storm on and off in the metroplex. I barely slept a wink. With every crack of thunder, I imagined the gallons of water collecting in the low area and forming a lake. It was awful.

Luckily, Sunday afternoon was dry, as was Monday. But yesterday’s forecast called for more severe storms, hail and heavy downpours. This time we were prepared, however. The gutters were up, and I was looking forward to seeing them in action. And I would have…if it had rained.

As my luck would have it, now that my gutters are up and ready to go, no water is falling from the sky. But during the first 48 hours of home ownership – before the gutter guy could make it to our house – we had a major rain event.

See how I am cursed?!

On the bright side, Saturday’s rain will hopefully be the last major one that will affect us without a system in place to move the water away from the foundation (knock on wood!). The gutters are good to go, and the guys scheduled to add dirt to the low spot between the study and master bedroom (as well as install drains and pipes that will flow underneath the backyard directly to the alley) are coming in the next two weeks. Even if it does storm between now and the drain installation, the gutters will work to move most of the water away from the problem area between the study and master bedroom. So, even though we aren’t technically out of the woods, yet, the trees are thinning out and I can see the sunlight.

After all the improvements are complete (including our new wood fence and sprinkler system), Trevor and I will be ready to move in to our new abode. I’m convinced that the dry summer season will start the second all of our water-related repairs have been completed, but at least we will be good the next time flooding rains pop up in our area.

My other big phobia (TERMITES!) has also been addressed. Since it is swarm season, I made sure the Terminix guy was able to initiate service on Saturday. Trevor mocked me as usual, but I had trouble sleeping both Thursday and Friday night because I had convinced myself that the little wood eaters had discovered my newly purchased pier and beam house and found it irresistible. My terror was only heightened when – at closing - our realtor told us that another one of her clients had their new house fall victim to a swarm between the inspection and their closing date. This nearly did me in.

Luckily, when the Terminix guy called to schedule my inspection and give me a bid for service, he took pity on me and worked me in on Saturday afternoon. This, of course, meant that he was out there drawing up plans in the pouring rain. They will be treating the house this weekend, but I wrote a check on Saturday to ensure that – even if a swarm shows up this afternoon – I am covered by the Terminix guarantee.

Other things already done to the house: fresh paint in the bedrooms, newly grounded plugs installed, a hole in the ceiling has been repaired, an overflow pipe and drain added to the heating/cooling system (again with the water!), an extra roof support beam fitted in the attic, etc. Trevor and I have also purchased bookshelves for the study and a refrigerator for the kitchen.

Improvements pending: a guy is coming out to measure for our storm doors this weekend. Exterior drain installation, sprinklers, wood fence, dog run, etc. are scheduled to be completed before the end of the month. Security system should be installed next week.

If there is enough money left in the budget at the end of this month, I’d really like to have a radiant barrier installed in the attic. Whether or not we are able to do this will depend on if our next door neighbor chips in for the part of the fence that borders his property. If not, it will be on my list for the future.

Now, if I can only decide on a moving company…