Bring on the Rain...

...but not until two months from now, please! We are now through with waterproofing the exterior of our soon-to-be basement walls, but we have been trying to get the ball rolling so we can start our framing and hopefully beat the summer monsoons (to minimize damage to the wood). The walls needed two weeks to cure, and we've had a week's delay trying to get water access to our lot for the excavators to use when doing backfill and compaction.

Waterproofing was the first part of our construction that we undertook all by our lonesome, and it was no easy chore! The waterproofing itself involved:

• digging out the cluttered footings
• prepping all exterior surfaces
• slathering on tar and waterproofing paint (3 coats in problem areas)
  
• pasting sheets of Styrofoam (to prevent rocks from penetrating waterproofing material)

Then we installed a drain tile system (a.k.a. "French drain" or"foundation footing drain") which involved:

• extending perforated drain pipe around wall perimeter at an appropriate slope
• hauling 7 tons of gravel in 5 gal buckets and surrounding the pipe with it
  
• covering the gravel with a soil separation fabric to prevent the pipe from getting clogged
• digging trenches for the pipes directing any water

I should mention that our boys love being on the lot while we're working, but they get into a lot of trouble! It isn't easy to keep them out of trouble while we work, but Melissa's parents have been very helpful looking after them some of the evenings that we have been there. There have been times, however, that we've been able to get some child labor out of them. We put them to work picking up nails and trash and paid them a whopping 50 cents for each bucket they filled. I hope they don't go calling the worker's union now!