BBP Part 6 Grass And A Sump Pump

Don't miss
BBP Part 1 Arbor Vitae And Rocks
BBP Part 2 Straightening The Wall
BBP Part 3 Goliath And His Friends
BBP Part 4 Sod And More 
BBP Part 5 Finally A Fence

Sept. 14th A week after seeding, the grass is starting to come up!


We went to Reno from the 16th to the 19th and came home to green!


The lighter green is not just because it's new grass, it's the faster growing annual grass that is in the mix. Eventually the slower growing perennial grasses will come in in the darker green and blend in. Theoretically.


Unfortunately, Travis didn't turn the sprinklers off while we were in Reno and apparently it dumped buckets and buckets of rain. The sod we bought popped up everywhere with these.


And these.


And these.


It's not that we got faulty sod, it's just a moisture control issue. Still. Annoying.

While on the subject of water, it's a problem under our house. Considering there's a creek in our backyard and a serious hill behind the neighbors across the street, obviously we're in a watershed. When we had the house inspected we found out about the water problem. Apparently pretty much everyone on the street has the same problem and didn't know about it until we got our inspection. That stinks of an engineering problem in the development to me.

Originally Travis talked about digging a perimeter trench around under the house, and putting in a sump pump. He hoped it would dry up down there during the summer so he could dig it out. Not so. It didn't seem to dry up at all. So, now what?

He decided to try digging down below the foundation and setting up a sump pump outside. He put his test in where the ugly concrete pad had been. Eventually he wants a shed back there, so this was just a test to see if it would work before he went full force where it needed to go.

Looks like it's collecting water to me.


Here he is Friday Sept. 24th getting ready to go down and see how the test has performed over some time and see if the water level under the house had gone down.


He said crawling around on the black plastic used to be like a water bed. Not anymore! It was definitely  working!


Here was the temporary drain. Now that we knew it worked, he planned to thread the pipe up his curtain drain. You can also get a glimpse of the finished fence with the little gate in it.


Pumping water out!


The new home for the sump pump was just on the other side of the air conditioner from the test (because a shed will go on the other side) but the new spot had leftover concrete dumped there from when the house was built. Time to hammer it out!


And here's the new sump pump. Travis hasn't made a locking lid yet for the box, but it's not like the kids are outside in all the rain right now anyway. The sump is made of two garbage cans stacked on top of each other one smaller (on the bottom) and a larger one with the bottom cut out stacked on the top. Then he drilled lots of holes in the sides for the water to come through.


Here you can see down the sump and see that it is collecting water. The ring you see at the water line is about half way down and is to keep the sump from collapsing with the pressure of the dirt around it. It came from an old truck wheel. Travis cut the bead off of the wheel and hammered it in until friction held it tight.


So then the backyard was done, the water under the house was taken care of and all in time for the rainy season. I'm looking forward to enjoying my bigger, leveler, slug-free, snake-free and (compared to what it was) spider-free, and an all around better backyard next summer! Hope you enjoyed reading all about our BBP!