Home repair
Comment here if you have questions to ask or
information to offer about repairing and fortifying your house and yard. Topics
to include: basement windows, ductwork, floor drains, good contractors, bad
contractors, finding a contractor, the cost of services.
Comments
After that, I spoke to my niece’s husband, who’s a sanitary engineer. He thought glass-block windows would be OK, though he’d put window well coverings over them or take some other measures that would prevent them from being struck by stuff floating on flood water. (I don’t see why a window-well cover wouldn’t just wash away, but maybe one could apply Plexiglas?) He mused about aquarium glass, but came down on the advice “Don’t over engineer it.” If the water gets to a certain depth, it will find its way in regardless, and you might as well relax.
Eg., https://www.securityglassblock.com/about/
https://ulbdrywaterproofing.com/blog/benefits-glass-block-windows/
https://www.milwaukeeglassblock.net/
Although the local people may be perfectly fine.
https://www.fema.gov/media-library-data/20130726-1502-20490-4764/fema_tb_2_rev1.pdf
If you have precious books and papers that you’ve set aside, hoping to rehabilitate them, a network of friends recommends this outfit:
https://www.midwestfreezedry.com/
I’m looking for a concrete guy willing to fill in a trench 54 feet long and 4 inches wide. It seems not to be a dream job for people who normally do driveways. Any ideas?
In some street conversation, somebody knew the best paint for basement walls. Katie P, was it you? What was that, pray tell?
I’m getting Duerst to reinstall some insulation. I liked the guy who came out.
I’m talking to Zander in Monday, and in theory Badger Basement Repair, from Fort Atkinson, the last week in October. I think I got that name from the restoration firm that works with American Family (Paul Davis). I intend to ask about windows. Will report back.
He's going to use spray foam insulation at the 2' flood cut level to the floor and blown-in cellulose above the flood cut. After we opened up the walls, we found that a lot of walls had never been insulated so I will use this as an opportunity to have it done well and hopefully save future money on reduced heating bills.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/national/flooded-home/?utm_term=.a088d3cb21f0
http://www.lsuagcenter.com/topics/family_home/hazards_and_threats/publications/wet-floodproofing
Unlike TriState, Zander is willing to seal up my open drain tile and extend it a bit, to take care of a nagging seepage leak.
I had this house tested for radon when we first moved in, and it was fine. But I understood this guy to say that I should have done a second test once drain tile went in. I’ll do one now and hope not to learn that I’ve been breathing bad gas for 20 years.
Finally, Zander doesn’t recommend battery-backup sump systems. The batteries generally aren’t strong enough to keep the pump going. A really high-end battery-backup might be OK—for $3000—but at that point a person might as well just buy a generator.
NOW I can’t resist telling you guys that Badger Basement Systems—the outfit in Fort Atkinson that asks you to sit in a queue for two months just to get someone to look at your house—just sent me a book called “Dry Basement Science.” It consists of 107 glossy, full-color pages covering everything from the “Outer Limits” (“what can—or should—be done outside”) to “Seeing Daylight” (“getting the windows right”) to “Crawl Space Hell.” It’s a major-league advertising piece, well-designed, well-written. I intend to read it, even though my main reaction is, What kind of advertising money produced this thing? I see that it’s available on Amazon (Rank: #1,613,564 in Books) for about $15. The default POV is “buy buy buy”—you must, you should, it’s best to—but there seems to be some good information, too. It kind of puts things all together in one place. So lord knows … The subtitle is all gravitas: “What to Have Done … and Why.” The last two words are both italicized and bold-faced.
https://www.fema.gov/media-library-data/20130726-1756-25045-8598/protecting_home_book_508compliant.pdf
Also, page 38 of Nancy's pdf talks about those sewer stops. I think I am going to take that off the Pertzborn request since they don't sound like the best idea. What a handy document Nancy, thanks!
https://www.fema.gov/media-library/assets/documents/13261
The one on mitigation has yet MORE links, eg., to a document on retrofitting existing homes.
I didn't have the drywall cut out in my garage. It looked fine at the time. Mistake. I saw yesterday that it's getting moldy. Now I have to get some new people to come in and cut it out—unless I lose patience and go out there and do it myself.
The $15K from Tri-State seems really high.
I just had Steady State Solutions LLC in my house last week. It is $300 initial/$150 post test, but we are hoping to get up to ~$2K-5K in rebates (note we also have vermiculite so some money will be from funds for that removal)
https://focusonenergy.com/residential
I'll check out the energy audit, too. Thanks, Kyle.
I wrote:
"Should I think in terms of keeping flood water out or letting flood water in? I had water to the ceiling of the basement. Was the pressure on the foundation so extreme that if I hadn’t had windows—if there hadn’t been water inside, pushing out—the walls would have buckled? Maybe having the water inside was a good thing?"
He replied:
"Yes I can imagine you and your neighbors are wrestling with what to do in the future. It is impossible to know if any particular wall would have buckled had the water stayed outside because each home would have a different structural capacity.
I am not aware of any wall buckling of the Shorewood Hills homes that did NOT get their basements filled with floodwater, so I would generally say it is better to keep water out. As we had been discussing the real questions is how high up can one person water-proof the home while still living in it.
We did see a few older homes in Mazomanie, Black Earth, and Cross Plains that had buckled basement walls that were typically the block-style construction.
In the end I suggest the first decision to be made by a property owner be “will water get this high again?” If you think so, then I’d suggest waterproofing as high as you think is reasonable. If on the other hand you view the August 2018 flood as more of an outlier, then I would just make sure the basement windows have a window well as high as the top of basement wall as a more defensive measure.
Regards,"
Email me if you want the full exchange.
Dan