Today was a much slower day than usual as both Brad and Corey had classes in the afternoon, Bill S had some personal appointments, and I had been fighting a dirty cold for the last two days. Notwithstanding our aches and pains, we did manage to add about an extra 8'-10' of trenching to the project.
To give you an idea of what we're now up to, we have to dig a trench 18"-24" deep around the inside perimeter of the baggage room basement. Because of a shortage of manpower, we're piling the excavated clay in a pile in the basement which we will later haul outside when we get the extra manpower.
The diagram below illustrates what we have to do. The solid line indicates what we've done and the dashed line indicates what we have left to do.
Once we get the trench dug, we then install a 6" "Big-O" drain tile in the bottom of the trench and back to the sump pit. And then backfill the trench with 1" clear septic-bed crushed stone. The crushed stone is hauled from the north end of the Museum's property.
But we're not there yet so we'll keep on working away on the trenching.
This morning we went down the basement stairs into the bowels of the basement in anticipation, wondering if our sump pump installation had been working all week. If it was working, we should be working on firmer ground instead of mushy clay. If it was working, the clay would be dropping off the shovel instead of sticking like a 10-ton weight to the end of the shovel. Would we see solid clay or would we see mushy?
It wasn't obvious as we stepped into the baggage room basement as our eyes hadn't yet adjusted to the light. I took the "trouble light" that had been hanging over the top of the sump pit and flicked it on. Eureka! The water level was down to where it should be and..... wonder of wonders!!..... we were walking on solid clay!!
For the next two hours, Bill S, Brad, Corey and I pounded in a couple of 2"x 4" stakes, screwed in some 8-footers into the stakes and into the floor joists, providing support to the plastic ABS piping so that a) people wouldn't fall into the sump pits, b) the sump pumps and the discharge pipes would have some support, and c) the ABS piping along the floor joists would have a proper slope so that the water would drain.
After a short break at mid-morning, we got down to the business at hand. There's a window well that used to provide fresh air into the basements from the breezeway. This was covered in donkeys ages ago with a concrete slab and the window well had a whole pile of rubble piled on the ledge. Ross had wanted this cleared out so that the concrete slab could be busted to allow air to be drawn into and through the basements and sucked out by the big fan that's in the furnace room basement. First, we shovelled the rubble from the well and at the base of the window well into buckets which was hauled outside. Brad and Corey did double duty in getting the 50 - 60 buckets of this junk out of the basements, up the stairs and dumped over the side of the swamp. This brought us up to noon hour and time for lunch.
After lunch, Bill S had to leave us which only left Brad, Corey and me to do the grunt work. Our objective was to start excavating for the trenches. Given that there were only 3 of us, we weren't about to kill ourselves trucking full pails of clay through the basements, up the stairs, across the tracks and over into the swamp. So we had to resort to "Plan B" instead of "Plan A".
To get started Brad and I started digging a trench on each side of the sump pump, dumping the clay into the pails
When Brad had dug his trench down to the depth of two shovels, we would then switch sides and he would carry on at the end of my trench and continue digging the clay out to the depth of two shovels, dumping the clay into the buckets.
Working on Brad's trench that he just left, I would then dig the trench down to its final depth of 24" with a slight slope on the bottom of the trench so that the water will drain towards the sump pit. When we get to the far end of the baggage room basement, the trench will be about 16" deep instead of the current 24". As you can see from the photo below, we've go the trench down fairly deep. (You can also see some of the bracing we added to the ABS plastic pipe to stabilize the sump pump and to provide some protection for the sump pit so that you don't fall into the sump pit.) On the left in front of Corey, you can just start to see the pile of dirt rising up the side of the old concrete column that used to support the floor.
With all of these pails being filled with clay, what do we do with the clay we've dug out? As I said above, we had to resort to Plan B. Since there was only the 3 of us, instead of trucking the pails up the stairs, Corey dumped the clay in a big pile in the middle of the baggage room basement. Here's what the pile looked like halfway through the afternoon as Corey dumps a pail of clay onto the pile. (I've highlighted the bottom edge of the pile to give you an idea of how much clay we dug out of the trenches.)
The clay came out relatively dry - if you can ever call clay dry - instead of the usual sticky, gooey mess that we were working with in the bathroom basement. Aside from the fact that the water levels in the swamp are at their lowest, the sump pump had been doing its job all week lowering the water table as the water was pumped out of the baggage room basement.
We're now short of manpower as two of the lads have gone back to school. However, we may be getting a couple of extra lads in the next couple of weeks, at which time, we'll be able to start trucking the clay pile outside. In the meantime, the pile is going to get bigger, and bigger, and bigger.
By the end of the day, we had made a good start with about 12' of trenching dug to the proper depth. Next week, it'll be more of the same.
Today was quite a different pace from what we had been doing for the previous 2 1/2 months. No digging clay or slinging crushed stone today! Hard to believe it eh!? For the past 10 weeks we've been doing nothing but digging out wet, mucky clay out of the basements and trucking back crushed stone - it's been hot, sweaty, grunt work.
When we arrived this morning, the first thing we looked at was the sump pit - the 45-gallon steel barrel that we had installed last week. The water in the barrel was about 12" from the top - a good indication of where the water level out in the swamp was at. Our objective for the day was to get the sump pump and the necessary plumbing installed so that we could start pumping out the water and lowering the water table in the baggage room basement.
Cory, Bill S and I started with 1 1/2" ABS rigid plastic pipe working both ends against the middle - first fitting fitting bits and pieces of pipe and fittings together at the sump pump end and then moving to the other end by the drains - cutting into the mains, installing a Y and working the pipe back to the sump pump. We had a couple of "oops" moments but we were able to quickly recover (that's what I like about ABS plastic pipe!). In between all of this, we had to make several trips over to Rideau Lumber to pick up bits and pieces (big and small) to make it all fit together.
By lunch time it seemed as if we hadn't made much progress but it's always the case that the prep work is the most important. We went back at it on our return at 1:15 and by 2:30 we had the plumbing pretty much completed. We took some extra time to judiciously place a few 2"x 4"s so as to keep the sump pump upright in the pit.
And then came the moment of truth. Corey kept an eye on the plumbing in the bathroom basement and I kept an eye on the plumbing in the baggage room basement. On signal, we plugged in the sump pump. We heard the whirr of the sump pump motor - but no sound of the water swooshing through the pipes. Or so it seemed. Had we installed the check valve the wrong way!? Did we have a major leak? Why can"t we hear the water running through the pipes!?
And then we heard the sound of music. No! Then we heard the sound of water rushing through the pipes. It had just taken a few seconds longer for the pipes to fill up with water. No leaks in the stuff we had glued together!! And only a few drops around the check valve (I forgot to put on some teflon tape!). And a small stream of water coming out of the union but that was easy enough to fix with a few twists, some moving of the pump and some teflon tape.
The sump pit was quite full of water so it took a few minutes for it to empty out and then the moment of truth - would the sump pump shut off??? Yup. Right on cue.
And so we have another success story. Last week we successfully installed the sump pit. Today we successfully installed the sump pump and plumbing. And in the weeks to come, we'll have even more success stories as the pump keeps working to lower the water table and we start digging some trenching to install some drain tile and crushed stone.
Stay tuned for more adventures of "The Swamp Chronicles".
After a two week hiatus, we were at it again this morning. Mike and Jesse have gone back to school so we had Brad and Corey with help from Bill S and Steve G to start the second major step in draining the swamp in the baggage room basement.
The key to any drainage project, whether it's a swamp, the bottom of a sewer trench or your basement, is a good sump pit. I've seen sump pits so shallow that the sump pump works overtime constantly pumping out small pails of water at a time instead of 45 gallons. Okay, so I exaggerate a bit on the volume but I have seen sump pumps burn out because the sump pit wasn't of large enough capacity.
In our case, we weren't going to have that problem because we had a 45-gallon steel barrel (kindly donated to the cause by Allan W) with both ends torched out (actually they were plasma-cuttered) and two 8" diameter holes cut in the sides as inlets for the "Big-O" drain tile that's going to be installed into trenches to be dug around the inner perimeter of the baggage room basement.
The challenge was to dig a hole 48" deep and 36" in diameter in sufficient time in thick gooey clay so that the hole didn't fill up with water before we had the hole finished. So we started the usual task of digging out 2 shovels of thick mucky clay, dumping the clay into the plastic pails, with Corey, Brad, and Bill trucking them through the basements, up the stairs, across the tracks and dumping the clay over the edge of the berm.
In short order we had the hole dug down to 24" and so far the water was only a small trickle, easy to contend with. Of course rubber boots were a necessity as, the deeper you dug the hole, the muckier it got to be. Corey and Brad were kept busy with a continuous flow of pails full of clay and water going up the stairs and outside and a continuous flow of empty pails coming back downstairs. (That's Corey in the photo below hiking full pails of wet clay out of the baggage room basement. Each pail weighs a good 40-50 lbs.)
It was a race against time as the minute I stopped digging to take a break, the water would come pouring in and no telling if we would have to abandon this hole. With a bit of steady shovelling, we were able to get the hole down to 36" deep and we were still smiling as we seemed to be winning the race. However, there was no time to stop for a break as you never knew if there was going to be a crack in the soft clay and a torrent of water might start pouring through. (You can see that my shirt's a bit more wet than in the photo above.)
It's at the depth of 36" that the soil structure starts to go through a drastic change. Instead of thick clay, the soil starts to change into a porous gravel mixed in with clay. That's when the water starts to pour in. As you shuffle your feet around in the bottom of the hole, the clay and gravel turn into a soupy mess. And the only way to shovel this stuff out is to use a McDonald's drink cup as a bailing can and bail the soupy mess out into a half-size plastic pail which you then dump into the large pails. Don't try carting that mess outside as it will never make it. It'll slop all over the place on its way up the stairs and out the door. So we simply dumped it into one corner of the baggage room basement. Give it a week or so to dry out and it will be solid clay.
By 11:30 (2 1/2 hours after we started), we had the hole down to 48" deep - the depth that we wanted. You can see in the photo below how fast the water has started to seep into the hole from the surround clay and gravel. That water is a good 3"-4" deep and below that is another 4"-6" of soupy clay. It took both Brad and Corey to haul me out of that hole as there was no way I could have climbed out all by myself.
Brad and Corey took 6 pails down to the north end on one of the lorrys and filled the pails up with 1" clear septic bed crushed stone which they then hauled down the stairs, and into the baggage room basement. I poured the 6 pails of crushed stone into the hole. The crushed stone sank to the bottom and formed a firm foundation to set the 45-gallon steel barrel on. I next placed some slabs of concrete block into the basement as a base for the sump pump.
In the meantime, the lads, along with Bill W and Steve G had gone back down to the North End to get another load of crushed stone, repeated the process of hauling it into the baggage room basement as I started to backfill the hole with crushed stone. Twelve buckets of stone later we had the sump pit back-filled to the mid-point of the barrel and it was time to break for lunch.
After lunch it was another trip to the North End for another load of crushed stone and we soon had the hole backfilled to the top. However, take a close look at the water level in the photo below and compare it to the levels in the photos above. The photo below was taken at 2:30 and the photo above was taken at 11:30. See how fast the water has risen in 3 hours. I expect that by next Thursday the water will be right up to the top of the barrel. That's how high the water table is in the basement. Our objective is to lower that water table by 24".
With the hole now completely backfilled to the top of the barrel, it was time to clean up and put the tools away.
Here's a photo of Corey and Brad inspecting the work before we invited the Board and guests to inspect the work. They do look kind of fatigued. And so was I.
As I told the Board members who were there today, those guys have done a tremendous job. Without them, I wouldn't have been able to even think about starting this job. So, next time you see them, make sure you thank them for their efforts.
Next week, we'll be taking a different tack as we install the 2" rigid ABS plastic pipe that will take the water away via the sump pump.
