Todays Project - What did you do today?

[Dr Stan]

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Uncovered


Electrical supply





Covered




Home grown terminal block



I was really trying to get this project finished before surgery and the foot thing slowed me down.

Built my shop 7/8 years ago and until a couple of years ago I had no water issues.  Then the backyard neighbor tore down his fence and I started to get water inside the shop.  I looked & looked but there was no evidence of a roof leak and I even checked to see if it was getting inside the wall somehow.  Nope.  Turned out the fence acted as a diverter.

Determined it was coming under the sill plate so I dug out some of the dirt and applied silicone caulk to seal it.  This worked for a while.

This spring we had a couple of good gully washers and of course I had water in the shop.  The backyard neighbor's house is at least 2' higher than my shop and possibly a good 3' and his backyard slopes down toward mine.  Decided to take the bull by the horns and build a modified French drain.  Made a catch pan & grate from a piece of gutter and powder coated expanded metal which feeds into 2" PVC pipe.  It in turn goes into a 45 gallon pickle barrel.  I put a 3/4hp sump pump in the barrel on top of some concrete pieces to help keep the barrel in the ground. 

I had hoped the 2" pipe would eventually come out in a low spot, but no such luck thus the barrel.

It's been hot, dirty, time consuming, and back breaking, but I believe this will prevent any more water coming under the sill.  I also made the time to replace some damaged vinyl siding and add an outside outlet.  Installed a GFI outlet inside just up stream from the outside outlet.

I've tested it with the garden hose and it worked as planned.  

BTW, rotated the pics in Photobucket, but could not get them to stay put and I'm too tired to work on them anymore.