Sunday, March 09, 2014

Spring's arrival is no longer quite so ominous

After a little investigation yesterday morning, I was very happy to learn that all of my sump pump problems could be attributed to user error.  I was also happy to learn that we don't have a sump pump with an internally wired switch - so if either the switch or the pump go I can replace the problem part and not the whole operation.

Maybe it was the good news on the sump pump front, but somewhere I found the motivation to finally open up and apply our epoxy crack filling compound.  Of course, I'm not sure that the stuff will end up being all that effective as the instructions imply that it works more quickly and effectively when applied to warmer surfaces.  Unfortunately, our basement walls aren't all that warm at the moment.

The other good news of the day is that the forecast sun hasn't yet arrived.  With sun and higher temperatures we'd really be in the midst of a rather intense melt.  The absence of the sun should slow things down somewhat dramatically - which will hopefully allow us to avoid any Spring melt related problems.

On the other hand, because of the location of the snow during last year's thaw we've been keeping the patio and side of the house free of snow and it would be nice to have a rather dramatic melt to provide me some comfort that my work was worth it or the knowledge that no matter how clear I keep the foundation we'll have thaw leakage.

Anyway, no matter what the sun does, we should have at least a little melting today and we should be ready for it.  If I'm particularly motivated I may take this opportunity to remove some ice at the base of our driveway.

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