Do you have a basement? Is it leaking? Yet?
Well, when you get leaks, you have two approaches.
- Patch the walls, dig up the cement, put in a French drain, and try to relieve the hydrostatic pressure … this adds up to a large investment. And then, do what the wall-patchers say is your last option: fix your lawn drainage issues for another large investment.
- Skip the patching and go directly to fixing the drainage issues in the yard. It is an awful amount of money, but supposedly afterward your basement won’t whine and bubble up from underneath when there’s a bad storm.
We have taken path 1, and I wish we had taken path 2. But here we are. Massive trenches are being dug and garden beds are being razed. Thankfully the great stone wall is not a problem.
At least the trench diggers are suffering too. I found myself listening to snippets of their conversations.
“No, we need just another foot. Can you get another foot?” (They did.)
“Bug spray. Do we have bug spray?” (I don’t know why they would need this. It’s December. Did they find an underground cicada community?)
“That bush needs to come out.” (Great! I hate that bush. But yet, it did not come out. I think the trench is being truncated in favor of taking out the bush.)
They suggested it might be done in a day and a half, now they’re revising that to be three days. I might have to stop working at home so I can eavesdrop all the time.