Long time, no post!

So, I am sorry about the very long time between posts...our summer has started with a bang.

My dad came into town 2 weeks ago for a week and a couple days. The boys were planning on building a French drain to help with our leaky basement. If you remember, we had a pretty big leak about 2 months ago. We have always had a bit of a problem with water coming in through different parts of the walls down there, so to fix this problem (so we can hopefully finish it off some day), my dad came up to help us waterproof!

Well, really to finish waterproofing the basement. As it turned out, the owners some time before us had started the process with trenching the concrete around the inside of the basement and installing drain tile. So, we just needed to finish things off outside to keep more water than it could handle from coming in.

So, the photo journey of our French drain. The pictures are from my dad's facebook account, so they might be a little blurry and low quality...sorry, but enjoy!

Step 1: Dig a trench around our foundation.

Step 2: The trench is done! (wow! That went fast, huh?)

Step 3: Power wash the exposed foundation.

Step 4: Tar the exposed foundation so that any water that touches it does not penetrate the concrete blocks (which are very permeable to water...stupid blocks).

Step 5: Lay a plastic lining in the trench so that any water that does not get picked up by the pipe flows down the lining, away from the house...not into the basement.

Step 6: Buy lots and lots of gravel. Have it delivered.

Step 7: Fill the bottom of the trench with some gravel to give support to your pipe. The pink (yes, I know, they chose my favorite color) foam board protects the plastic from getting punctured by the gravel as it goes into the trench.

Step 8: Dig secondary trench for French drain #2 to keep water from overloading the trench next to the foundation.

Step 9: (yes, I did actual work...that's not just a posed picture) Lots and lots of shoveling gravel to fill in the trenches.

Step 10: Begin to lay the pipe. It even gets a 'drain sock' around it to filter the water that goes into the pipe. Isn't that cute??

Step 11: Lay pipe all the way around the house.

Step 12: 2 pipes mean extra protection. Well, technically, the second pipe is from the French drain #2, but, it does make sense, right? Double the protection!!

Step 13: Fill in the trench with gravel.

Step 14 (Not pictured): Top the trenches with landscaping fabric. Top the fabric with the dirt. Whew! Wow...what a lot of work! We have had 2 rainy days since the trenches were built and so far, no water in the basement. We will see when one of the torrential downpours comes our way. :)