Today was a change in the course we were taking. As we had limited man-power, I took a closer look at the trenching and made an executive decision. The 8'-10' remaining to be trenched was back-stopped by the trenching in the bathroom basement. So I decided it was now time to install the drain tile and start backfilling the open trenches with crushed stone.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Sump Pit Liner - Gift Shop Basement
A few weeks ago, I put out a call for two 45-gallon oil drums for the Gift Shop Basement (aka the Ladies' Waiting Room Basement). The opening into this basement measured only 18" wide and 30" high. Given that the diameter of a 45-gallon barrel is 24", we would have had a problem pushing a barrel through this opening. Recall that a 45-gallon barrel makes a perfect liner for a sump pit. So if we were to install a sump pit in the Gift Shop Basement, we would have to think of some way to get a 45-gallon barrel through that small opening. What to do!!??
Aha!! Split a 45-gallon barrel in half!! How do I get the two halves together after I've shoved each piece into the Gift Shop Basement!!?? Very easy! Cut two strips off of a second barrel, drill a whole bunch of holes, and bolt each half together using the two strips from the second barrel.
George W took on the challenge of finding two barrels. With a little bit of arm-twisting some of the businesses in downtown Sensational Smiths Falls, he quickly located two barrels. I trucked them into Ottawa to our secret machine shop and got Ross R to cut the barrels to spec. Here's Ross at our secret machine shop using a plasma cutter to cut one barrel into two halves. At first the air was very clear which is usually the case when using a plasma cutter.
What's a plasma cutter, you ask? It's simply an arc welder in reverse, only without a welding rod attached. The electric arc between the business end of the cutter and the barrel turns solid steel into a molten mass in the blink of an eye. A stream of compressed air blows the molten metal out of the way, much the same way an oxy-acetylene torch does the job, only with much less heat. A plasma cutter is one of my favourite tools!!
However, as he moved the torch down the length of the barrel, the paint heated up and started to smoke. There had to be at least 10 coats of paint on exterior of that barrel - but none on the inside.
The air soon filled with smoke so we had to take a break for a few minutes while the air cleared.
I then used my handy-dandy angle grinder to clean up the rough edges, lined up and drilled matching holes in the two halves and two strips, installed some bolts, nuts, washers, and lockwashers, and tightened them all up. Voila! A barrel that can be dismantled, pushed through the opening, and reassembled inside the Gift Shop basement.Neat, eh!?
There was, however, a fair bit of exposed steel that would quickly rust through, which had to be painted. Brad arrived on the scene this morning suffering from sore teeth as he had had a couple of molars pulled. So we put him to work sloshing paint over the exposed steel. (You can see the two strips of steel on the far side of Brad's leg.)
Stringing "Big-O" Drain Tile In The Baggage Room Basement
Meanwhile, Cliff, Bill S. and I were down in the basment stringing out the "Big-O" drain tile and threading it from the Waiting Room basement and into the trenches of the Baggage Room basement. At times, wrangling those coils of "Big-O" seemed as if we were trying to hold onto a big Anaconda snake from the Amazon jungle. However, we soon had the drain tile under control and into the bottom of the trenches.
Filling The Trenches With Crushed Stone
Our next step was to trek on down to the North end with a lorry, 12 buckets, and 4 shovels to get some crushed stone to backfill the trenches. At this point, George M decided to join us and gave us a hand filling the buckets with crushed stone. Not to sound like a record here, but if you ever install drain tile, the type of crushed stone you get is very, very important. This is 1" clear septic bed crushed stone. It's been washed twice at the quarry so it doesn't have any of those fine pieces of grit which is known as "stone dust".
The lorry that we use will only accommodate 12 buckets - 6 on each side. However, when you fill up a bucket, you have one heck of a lot of weight. And given that we're no longer full of the same p@#s-and-vinegar that we had 22 years ago, throwing those pails of crushed stone around is no easy job!
Once the pails are filled, we put them on the lorry, wheel the lorry back to the station, and unload the pails onto the edge of the station platform. One-by-one, we then struggle with a pail to the door going down into the basement. Walking a pail down a flight of stairs is no easy job. And once we've got the pail down into the furnace-room basement, the job is only half done! We next lug the pail through the opening into the Waiting Room basement, across that basement, and into the Baggage Room basement.
Here's Bill S. sticking his head into the Baggage Room basement with a pail of crushed stone.
And here's me emptying the pail into the trench.
We managed to make two trips - 24 pails of crushed stone - before lunch. This is the trench work that we managed to fill. It doesn't look like a lot but those trenches are 18"-24" deep.
It's a case of that old story -
How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.
How do you fill a trench with crushed stone? One pail at a time.
We all had personal business to attend to after lunch so we called it a day. We'll be back at it again next week.
As I approached Smiths Falls this morning, the rain went from light showers to a solid downpour - sheets of water pelting down on my windshield. And as I approached the museum, the rain came down even faster. As I got out of my car, I got soaked to the skin. What a way to start the day! It seemed like it was going to be one of those days where we wouldn't get a lot done. However, 2 1/2 hours later as I reflected on what we had done, I guess we did make progress.
Brad and Corey managed to get a few extra feet of trenching done so that we're now down to about 8' left to dig out.Cliff and I outchanged the burnt-out sump pump in the furnace room basement and got it working. To finish the job, I cut the electrical cord off of the pump and Cliff threw the burnt-out sump pump into the dumpster across the way. After that, we cut into the line in the furnace room basement, installed a Y and started to run some ABS plastic pipe into the gift shop basement.
As I had to leave early on some personal business, we only had about 2 1/2 hours of work but it was the kind of work that sets us up to make good progress for the next number of weeks. All in all, not a bad day in spite of the rain.
Notwithstanding that it was rainy and dreary outside, it was nice and dry inside the baggage room basement. Okay...... so it wasn't exactly dry but it was definitely a lot better than when we started 4-5 weeks ago..... when the clay was squishy when you walked on it.... when you knew that clay was saturated with an awful lot of water...... and definitely an awful lot dryer than when we first started this project back at the beginning of July. The sump pumps have definitely been doing the job of de-watering both the bathroom and baggage room basements. Hard to believe we started 3 1/2 months ago and only on Thursdays with about 4-5 of those Thursdays when we couldn't do any work for one reason or another.
It was only Bill S, Brad, and yours truly today on the end of the shovels as we continued digging the trenches around the perimeter. We weren't about to truck that heavy clay outside so we continued piling the clay on top of the rest of the clay. Hard to believe that two weeks ago (we didn't work last week) when we started that the clay floor was level. Look at what it looks like now!
Those pails in the foreground have done a spectacular job of helping us get the excavated material out of the basements and getting crushed stone back in. We've got about 15 pails and we can get a really good chain gang going - when we have the bodies. And that's our problem. Most of the lads have gone back to school (good for them!!) so we're down to 3-4 of us - at most - each Thursday.
However, with Bill S, Brad, and me on the end of the shovels, we made quite a bit of progress today as we got the trenching well past the 3/4 mark. The grey line indicates what we got done two weeks ago and the blue line indicates what we got done today. The dotted line indicates what we have left to do and, hopefully, we'll be able to get the trenching completed next week.
Just to give you an idea of what the trenching looks like, here's a shot of the trench along the side next to the track - the swamp side where the water rises and falls in the basement as the level of the water in the swamp rises and falls. We're well below the bottom of the swamp with our sump pump pit and trenching so water levels in the baggage room basement should be considerably lower than we've seen in the past.
That funny-looking blob that you see sticking out the left side of the trench is drain tile I installed 22 years ago. Quite a difference in the depth of the trench and drain tile we'll be installing next week! Here's a good view of the trenching next to the breezeway. Hard to believe but there's a fair bit of water that comes in from the breezeway side of the station. Since we've had the sump pump working for 3 weeks now, digging out the clay is a lot easier than when it was saturated with water.
That's part of our stash of plastic pails in the background. When we get some more help, they'll be put back into service to truck out the clay that we've been piling up.
While the side next to the main waiting room (the side towards William St) has been relatively dry because it partly drains into that basement, the clay still has a very high moisture content. After we get the the drain tile installed, the excavated clay trucked out, and the trench backfilled with crushed stone, the clay will start to dry out as the water table inside the basement drops even lower.
You can see the two planks we put across the trench to get in and out of the baggage room basement. Right now the baggage room basement is a construction work site so the standard safety rules apply.
Just before I left for the day, I took one last photo of that pile of dirt. That's one humongous pile we've dug out of those trenches, eh!?
Oh yeah, almost forgot. Just to make sure we stayed on grade with a small amount of slope to the bottom of the trench, I set up my laser level (you can see it in the background on the right) and checked the trenching that we had done so far. Right on the money!! Now ain't that damn good!!?
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 when we start to dig the trenches in the baggage room basement - the continuation of the 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.
