In 2001, we lifted our house...
...built a new basement and reset the house, with a 16x16 foot recessed walkout...
...that overlooked a draw to the north.
Dug down with an excavator just inside the front wall of the walkout and put in a 100 gal plastic tank, filled with 4" clean stone (french drain) and laid a 6" plastic tile from the bottom of that all the way to the ditch to the north (120 feet or so). This, coupled with the 150 tons of clean stone under the foundation allows gravity to drain ground water to daylight...good plan, huh?
I was thinking pretty far in advance...but not far enough, as we built a pond in that ditch/draw in '05. While I moped around griping about the lack of rain for 18 months...the actual filling of the pond crept up on me and now, with the really warm temps after WAY much snow, the pond is within 6" of full pool (YAY!).
It suddenly dawned on me that I'd never confirmed the height of the emergency spillway in relation to the slab of my house! It SEEMED there would be plenty of fall...but I never actually CHECKED it.
Grabbed a buddy's laser transit and stick last night...my heart can resume beating because it's 42" from the top of the emergency overflow to the bottom of my slab...
When I mentioned this issue to the wife, I thought she was going to drive right over me with her car. By that time, though, I'd already confirmed what I KNEW was the case...the pond would NEVER impact our house (Thank Gawd!)
Didn't sleep much the night before, as they were predicting 2-3" of rain...was hoping I wouldn't wake up with a couple inches of water in our bedroom.
She's iced in, but I might try to get some pics tonight, showing near full pool.
(BTW...can't use Snapfish anymore...as copying the URL doesn't seem to work anymore. Need the IMG text from PhotoBucket.)
