Now the photo below shows that all is cool and calm with hardly a puddle of water. That's because this photo was taken about a week ago. However, 22 years ago, things were quite different. The water level was at least 16" above that plastic ABS pipe that you see sticking out of the wall. So you can see we were facing a big challenge.
Now, my experience with water, floods, dams and sump pumps started when I was about 8 years old. Back then my brother and I would dam up the ditches alongside the road so that we could get enough water to float our boats. My parents built their own house when I was 14 and I helped install the septic bed, the septic tank, the sump pit, and the drain tile. In the summer my brother and I would build a dam across the Jock River so that we could swim in the heat of the summer. During my days at university I worked on road construction building ditches, installing sewer pipes, water lines, and manholes, all the time keeping the water at bay and generally mucking around in the mud. But I digress........ Back to the matter at hand.
Back then there were some 45-gallon drums floating around in the back-40 - the ideal instant-liner for a pit for a sump pump. Using my hammer and a steel chisel, I knocked the ends out of that first drum. Next I started to dig a hole for a sump pit using the steel drum as a liner. With the steel drum and sump pump installed, I started to dig the trenches to put in some drain tile. Here's a photo of that first sump pit installation taken two months ago. Hard to believe it's over 22 years old and still doing its job, eh!?
With the trenches being dug, we needed to install some drain tile. I can still remember telling Ken Papineau one Sunday that I needed some 6" "Big-O" plastic pipe. "What in the heck is 'Big-O" plastic pipe?", Ken asked. (Obviously Ken had never been a farmer, eh!?) Ken thought I was talking Greek but when I arrived the next Sunday, there was a big roll of the stuff down in the basement.
Slowly the system of trenches was extended in the main waiting room basement, Big-O drain pipe installed and all covered with crushed stone. Slowly the dirt floor began to dry out. Now if I hadn't told you, would you have known there's a whole system of drain tile underneath the basement floor!? However, much more work needed to be done in order to do a satisfactory job of keeping the water at bay.
Next on the lineup was some trenching in the baggage room basement after knocking a hole through the 16" concrete wall between the main waiting room basement. Hard to believe that there's some Big-O drain tile underneath all that clay, eh!?
As I got ready to start working on another basement section, I would tell Ross I needed some lights. Fumbling around in the dark, Ross would manage to install lights so that we wouldn't be working in the dark. When I returned the next Sunday, there were the lights and some light switches.
However, with a thousand-and-one priorities to do around the Museum, the drain-tile project began to take a back seat to everything else. From time-to-time I would wander down into the basement and add to the system of trenches and canals. In 2004, I started to trench along the inside of the foundations so that that the water seeping in from the outside could drain into the sump pits. Slowly the piles of clay and muck started to pile up so that we couldn't dig the trenches any deeper without the excavated material rolling back into the trenchwork we had just dug.
However, to do a better job, more sump pits and sump pumps had to be installed and the excess clay had to be trucked out of the basement. And other priorities and things took me away from the project - until a couple of months ago. I hate leaving a challenge unfinished - even if it was one that I started 22 years ago. And so I "volunteered" to take on the project.
Next up: Some basic principles of draining swamps.
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