A Pleasant Surprise

I am impressed with my village board and staff. About six months ago they had their first meeting regarding the flooding issue that has affected our community the past two years. Last night, they presented a multi-faceted plan to try and address the problems. It is apparent that the village has few resources for this and short of replacing and improving our 100+ year old sewer system; there is no economically viable “fix” to the solution.

What the Village Staff came up with is not perfect it is a proposal that shows a lot of thought and commitment to the problem. They will be instituting a downspout disconnection program. A consultant will be hired to perform computer modeling of the system so that any future improvements can be done in an informed manner. They will have a pilot program for inlet restrictors and will add eight pilot permeable paved alleys. The staff is working to put together a Multi Hazard Mitigation Plan so that they can secure funds for additional village-wide mitigation procedures and they have already applied for funds for a bioswale at one of our parkways. Their multi-faceted approach shows that they did their homework and that they listened to the many citizens that were vocal about this issue.

The biggest proposal, or at least the most-discussed one involved a grant or loan program for homeowners to install their own overhead plumbing. We already drained our savings to install ours but there are many homeowners in the area that, understandably, can’t take on such a project without assistance. The board, comprised of Adam Salzman, John Hedges, Colette Lueck, Bob Tucker and Ray Johnson, voted unanimously to approve a grant that would pay half of a homeowner’s expenses up to $3,500.00 for private sewage mitigation improvements. The first round of grants would be need-based and we would likely not qualify but we will get in line for funds as they will retroactively pay for improvements as long as the program is continued.

As you can tell from my previous post, upon hearing the news that came out of the financial committee last week, I was disheartened about this issue and prepared for the worst. What occurred last night was a pleasant surprise and I hope that their proposals, once instituted, start to have a positive impact on our sewer system.

Now I just can’t wait to see how this bioswale proposal moves forward. I think it will be an awesome feature but wonder if the folks in the proposed neighborhood will go along with it.

The First Project of 2012

Happy New Year everyone.  I figure I've already wasted about 10 hours of the New Year so I better get started on my first house project.  What better way to start the new year than to dig up portions of the basement slab and have new plumbing and sewer backup mitigation measures put into place? 

We have dealt with flooding for two consecutive years now and it is time to do something about it.  The down-side is that this will cost an insane amount of money and will have no impact on the overall look of the Tiny Bungalow.  Yeah, we won't have sewage in the basement anymore but I can think of about a hundred other places in the house where this kind of investment will make a dramatic improvement. 

The project starts with cleaning out the basement and making way for the work.  After the last project which, by the way, is not complete, I threw all of my supplies in the basement to make the upstairs presentable for guests.  Since before Thanksgiving, there has been little change.  I need to clean it up. 

I will get the added benefit of having all of my tools put away in the correct spot so that I can start the next project on the right foot.  Then again, since I rarely have the tools in their "right spot", it is more likely that I will be even more confused and have a harder time starting a project because I can't find anything. 

The plumbers arrive on Tuesday and are supposed to be done by Friday.  They have a solid estimate and a defined scope.  We'll see how that holds up once they start digging. 

More Action After the Flood

So what are your choices when you want to try and combat a chronic flooding problem?  Last year, we chose to try and live with the inevitability of flooding.  Unfortunately, we did not plan on this becoming a yearly occurrence.   It can't possibly happen three years in a row, right?  Well, I'm not willing to take that chance so I've started to look into various mitigation procedures.

Option A: A Sump
A sump is a pit that is dug into the basement of your home, at a low point, where a pump is installed.  When the pit fills with water during a flood, the pump turns on and the water is pumped into the yard or back into the stormwater system.  Option A is not good for us because, as you can see by the diagram, the only aim of a sump is to resolve storm runoff and groundwater issues, not sewer backup. 

Our flooding is caused by sewer backup, not by stormwater from our downspouts and draintile outside.  Sewer backup is when the sewer system becomes over-taxed as stormwater is combined into the system during storms.  The system can't flush to the proper location (in our case south to a major sewer line) and it backs up into the low points of the system.  In our case, it's the basements of our homes in the Northeast corner of the OP.  All a sump will do is put water back into the system, then back into our house.  Also, in order for the backup to reach a sump, it would have to flow from our drains, across the basement floor to a low point where the sump is located, creating a mess along the way.  It is also very unlikely that any pump can keep up with the kind of overflow that these storms have produced.

Option B: A Backflow Preventer or Check Valve
This is a device that is put onto your sewer line that allows waste to leave the home but in the case of a sewer backup, it does not allow waste to flow back into the home.  This is a slightly more expensive option as it requires a valve to be put on your sewer line.  In our case, this would also incur a cost of connecting all of the sewer lines at one place as they leave the home.  This would also be a problem at our home because we have exterior storm drains (from the roof) that drain into sub-grade tile that enter our sewer system.  These too would have to be somehow tied in as they are another point of sewer entry.  Finally, this valve should be checked and cleaned periodically to insure that it "seats" correctly, sealing the home in case of a backflow event.  This is yet one more additional cost.  This might be an option for us but if I am going to dig everything up anyway, perhaps there is something better.

Option C: Overhead Plumbing
In our home, there is a basement bathroom and laundry tub.  Also, two floor drains, one interior and one exterior, connect at the basement level.  The rest of our plumbing, from the kitchen and bathrooms, connects upstairs.  If all of the plumbing were located at the upper level, above the height of the sewer backflow, then we wouldn't have this problem.   There are a number of ways to accomplish this.  At our home, we would likely have to collect everything to a pump pit at the basement level.  This includes floor drains, exterior drains, basement fixtures and upstairs fixtures so that's a lot of excavating and work.  From there, a pipe would run up, to the height of our ceiling of the basement and back down to the height of the sewer line.  A pump would be installed at the pit to allow for the waste from the home to be ejected out.  This "loop" up to the ceiling line is what is critical.  As long as the exterior flood line stays below the top of that loop, there will be no backup in the basement.  This prevents sewage from running back into the house.  See the diagram below if you still don't understand:

"Option C" is currently the option we are looking at.  It is a "Cadillac" of systems and the most expensive but it also seems to be the most reliable.  I just wonder if we can afford it.  I am an architect practicing during one of the worst economic downturns the country has known.  I am hardly at the top of the economic food chain so this could be tricky.  I knew my straits were dire so I even looked to public sources for help.  Many local municipalities allow for grants for mitigation practices so what about the OP?  I wrote to Ron Davis, our State Hazard Mitigation officer and, unfortunately, this is the response I got:

The short answer is that we won’t be able to provide funds for your work. The primary reason is that we have determined that the methods you described are successful in keeping water out of that basement; it moves the water down line to the next basement that lacks backup prevention methods. We did not feel that this was a good use for taxpayer dollars, but it is a good mitigation measure.

There are a couple of other issues with providing funds to Oak Park: they don’t belong to the National Flood Insurance Program and they don’t have a mitigation plan. They will be working with Cook County to develop a plan, but that will probably take a year to complete. Both are prerequisites to funding.

I’m sorry we are not able to provide assistance.

I didn't really expect a very different answer because I understood the issues at stake here.  This was not a national disaster and Cook County and Oak Park do not have emergency plans in place.  There are currently a group of folks in my community that are working on this issue and hopefully I will be able to assist in some way with those efforts but for the foreseeable future, we are S.O.L.   I guess the only part of the letter I find a bit annoying is the subtext.  First, it seems to recognize the fact that Oak Park and Cook County see my basement as part of a stormwater retention system and it is fine to keep it that way.  Second, it insinuates (much like a neighbor did while we were at a community meeting last week) that I am a "bad neighbor" if I take such steps to protect my home from damage because it affects those that will not or cannot do the same.    

In the meantime, we had a plumber that is a business associate of my wife's out last week to look at the house. We are holding our collective breath for the estimate because whether or not my neighbors think I am being neighborly by installing the overhead plumbing, I am not sure I care.  I'd take anything over the need to clean someone elses shit out of my basement once more.   

On another note, we got some serious rains yesterday.  No flooding but the rainbow was beautiful.

Note: Above is a less than scientific analysis of all of the issues that involve residential plumbing and flooding so these situations and systems may not pertain to your home.  I'd love to hear any comments or corrections but if you are having similar problems, I strongly suggest you discuss the issue with a couple plumbers.

Action After the Flood

What a difference a year makes.  It is not new news that last year, we were devastated by a flooded basement.  In the scheme of things, since we were safe, the home didn't fall down, and our monetary losses were not crippling, it was not the worst thing that has happened to us but it was bad none the less.  We cleaned up, I spent many weekends re-finishing the basement, and we got over it.  When I woke up last week at 4:00am to the sound of a belaboring fan from the air conditioner in the basement, the feeling of dread came rushing back.  This flooding was not as bad as last years because we were more prepared but it was just as upsetting.

This week, the flurry of activity in the wake of the flooding has been very different than last.  Since our cleanup went rather quickly, I had time to collect signatures for a petition to the Village to have some action on the issue.  In speaking with my neighbors, it became apparent that pretty much everyone on our street was affected and some were even more pissed off than myself.  I also took the time to attend a Village board meeting where people from the neighborhood voiced their concern, anger and dismay with how the issue of flooding has been handled in the OP.  The Village line has been "it's a historic storm, there is nothing we can do about it".    In case you are wondering what kind of rain we got, the State of Illinois has a neat chart here.  On July 24th, last year, Oak Park recorded 7.85 inches within a 24 hour period.  That's a 100 year storm or a storm that occurs once in a hundred years.    On July 23rd of this year, O'Hare recorded 6.91 inches.  That's just over a 50 year storm.  In the OP, we got 4.81 inches in 4 hours, a 50 year storm.   The response that some people have come up with is that given the fact that we've been affected by a 100 year storm and a 50 year storm and the third largest blizzard within a one-year period, perhaps the word "historic" no longer has the teeth that is used to.
 
Another reason for the lack of "reaction" is that people themselves may have become complacent with it all.  After getting bombarded two-years in a row, perhaps folks feel "beat" and aren't reacting in a big way.  Heck, there were really only a handful of people at the public meeting held in the OP this week and though the few that spoke were understandably and visibly annoyed, it was hardly the outpouring of anger and disgust that I would have assumed.  At the meeting, it seemed that the Village had a rough estimate of about 150 to 200 flooded homes.  From my experience, on my street alone, there are about twenty homes.  If you do quick math and multiply that by the same number as there are streets east of mine, in the OP, that comes to at least 400 homes.  In the northeast quadrant of the village, the worst-affected area, there are another 4 or 5 blocks north of mine.  I would not be shocked if most of these and many, many more were flooded.  If this is the case, then people really need to speak up. 

In the process of researching, I've come to realize how important those state and federal declarations of "Disaster Areas" actually are.  With these declarations, come the possibility of funds for cleanup and mitigation practices.  Unfortunately, no disaster has been declared in the wake of last week's storm.  Perhaps people's assumptions are correct and a 50 year storm is just not that big a deal.  I think people just haven't spoken up or been heard.  Our Village Clerk, on one local blog, noted how important this assessment effort is and what you can do to participate.  Hopefully many are filling out the proper forms and getting them back to the village because I believe this is an issue that is worthy of attention.    

With the absence of a disaster declaration, there seems to be no direct route to funding at the moment.   I still took the time to write a letter to our State Hazard Mitigation Officer, Ron Davis.  Hopefully he can help.  I am also trying to decipher the programs that stems from FEMA's Hazard Mitigation Grant Program on my own.  The hope is that I can get reimbursed for any extraordinary steps I may take at my home.  This will likely take the form of an overhead plumbing system for the Tiny Bungalow.  Given the complexity of those topics, I will be writing more about grants and the overhead plumbing separately.  Obviously, this is a subject that will probably consume me and this blog for the next several weeks, at least.  I'd love to hear how other folks have dealt with similar issues and hopefully others can learn from my experience.                  

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life

One year ago today, the Tiny Bungalow had a little bit of a setback.  Over nine inches of rain fell in our neighborhood over a 2-day period and it left our basement a little less than hospitable.  This morning, we woke up to an odd grinding noise from our air conditioning.  I walked down stairs and, thinking about the storms we were having, started to have a sinking feeling.  When I got to the bottom of the basement stairs, my fears were realized.  We were flooded.  Again. Precisely one year after being flooded the first time.  This time, a seven inch rainfall in a single day, a record for Chicagoland, was the culprit.  We were lucky though.  Due to our major re-design and some vigilance about keeping things off the ground downstairs, we actually fared pretty well.  The Flor is soaked and we lost a handful of toys and our hot water heater is out but otherwise, we only have a mess to clean.  This is a major improvement over last year.     

I didn't take any pictures this year.  The water came to the same height.  There was less debris and we have a long road of cleaning ahead but I figured that I'd rather not dwell on any of that.  Instead, I am looking on the bright side of it all.  Instead of flood pics, I figured I'd showcase the fact that the storm did NOT destroy the sunflowers that have started blooming.  They are beauties too!  I think I will be investing in the red sunflower seeds every year now. 

We also have a very interesting volunteer this year. I had nothing to do with planting it but a very showy spider flower is about to bloom. I have to figure out how to propagate this sucker. If it got here on its own, it can't be that hard, right?



Stay tuned for the next project at the Tiny Bungalow:  How to Install a Sump.

Basement 3 of 3 - Entertainment/Living Area

This is the final installment of our completed basement project.  I am surprised I don't have any pics of what the entertainment area looked like before the flood but the space where we moved it to used to be occupied by the play area.  The TV viewing area was dominated by a giant Sauder entertainment center and a huge couch.  Both were great when we had a huge apartment on the north side but they never quite fit in at the bungalow. 

The new area has a different style.  We wanted to go a little more minimal and in keeping with our theme of getting as much stuff "on legs" and off the ground as possible, a more modern look seemed appropriate.

The television stand is the same cabinet that I hung over my desk.  It is Ikea and outfitted with drawers instead of doors and has open shelving for the cable box and other devices.  I also added legs to it.  We never had a place to display family pics so we put some picture ledges from Ikea on one wall and arranged them there.  

The big purchase was a new couch.  We got a sectional from Macy's.  It took almost four months for it to arrive but Macy's was very nice about it, gave us some discounts, and we are happy with the purchase.  I don't love the light-colored Flor I chose for this area.  The color matches some of the flecks in the floor and it was intended to brighten up the space but I think it is a bit much.  Don't be surprised if it gets moved to another area of the house and I replace it with something different.   

At some point, we'd like to replace the butterfly chair in the corner with something a bit more comfortable.  For now, it is fine.  We mostly use it to hold clean laundry anyway.

I already blogged about my mother in law's table that I refinished.  I think it works well in the room and am happy with how it turned out.  I should get another coat of oil on it though.  

A final touch was a storage area for my boards.  I thought they looked nice enough to have up as sort of art pieces so I mounted them on cleats on the wall at the bottom of the stairs.  The six year old boy from across the street saw them and lit up saying they were "the coolest thing I've ever seen".  Even though it isn't coming from the most discerning critic, I'll take the compliments when I can get them.  

Basement 2 of 3 - The Play Area

The second and perhaps most important part of the basement is the play area.  Our rooms on the main floor of the house are pretty small so it is nice to have a place for our daughter to have all of her "stuff".   Before the flood, it was at the bottom of the basement stair and it kind of took over the entire space.     

The first thing I wanted to do was to move the play area to the "back" of the basement.  The hope is that toys wouldn't migrate and take over the entire basement as easily as they used to. 

We know we wanted ample storage and organizing furniture but we let our daughter decide what she wanted in her area.  She chose her own Flor tiles and color.  She also chose how she wanted toys stored and after she saw that I had a nifty magnet board she absolutely had to have one too.  

Like the furniture in the other areas, we got it from Ikea and put it up on legs so that any flooding in the future will hopefully not get to any of the goodies.  We like these cabinets because it is easy to take toys in and out of and the top makes a perfect play surface.  The entire thing also sits below the back of the couch so it is not so obtrusive when viewed from the living/entertainment area.

We have additional toy storage in small plastic movable bins and also utilize the built-in shelf that I built when I renovated the basement the first time around.   

Basement 1 of 3 - The Office

Oh crap, I still have this blog, don't I.  With all of the other Housebloggers starting in on their New Year's resolutions and plans, I figured I better get off my butt and do something.  I actually haven't done too much on the house but I realized at the end of last year, I completed work on the basement and never really blogged what I did.  So, before I start going on with plans for the New Year, I figured I'd bring the blog up to speed.  A good place to start is the flood.  If you don't read the blog often, last summer we had some serious floods that ruined the basement.  Since we use it for living room, play room, and home office, it was devastating.  It is all cleaned and re-finished.  This is the office area during the flood (and after I rifled through everything, trying to salvage any valuables.  I was never happy with the work area.  It didn't "work" and it didn't look so great.  On the bright side, the flood gave me the opportunity to fix this area. 

This is the work area now: new desk and cart, new book case, new floor covering, new cabinet and lighting.  The chair and filing cabinets are old and made it through the flood with no damage.  One key to the new design was to get everything off the floor.  Everything in the basement is up on feet now.  If a flood occurs again, it may mess up the space but hopefully less "stuff" gets ruined.

There are a few new features that make the space "work" as well.  I put in new task lighting under the cabinets to light the desk.  We have 2x4 flourescent lighting in the area but it is ugly and it sucks so this is a big improvement.  I mounted an Ikea cabinet above the desk for additional storage.  I chose an Ikea bookcase and another cabinet in the same finish for other areas of the basement so the furniture no longer has a haphazard appearance.  Below that I now have a tack board to put up important business cards, ongoing projects, etc.  I also have the desk and table, from CB2, on casters so they are easy to move around.  

The casters are great because, since I often need to spread out design drawings, I can bring it to the side and create a nice work area.  The cart also helps hold all of the crap that I used to have stacked on the floor next to the old desk.

The tack board is a metal magnet board from Ikea.  I put up two of them and got some funky magnets at the local office supply store.  By the way, I was surprised at how cool magnets are these days.  I also now have a place to put all of my magnetic poetry for some added inspiration.

Opposite the desk, behind the couch, I put a new bookcase.  It is a sort of console as seen from the living area and acts as a room divider.  I can easily access books and supplies from the office area so it serves well for additional storage.

I chose a series of random black, black & white, and striped magazine holders to make it look a little neater, hiding some of the less attractive stuff I store there.

I am really happy with the new space except for a couple of minor things.  CHORDS!  I have worked very hard to organize and hide chords in the new basement.  There are a couple areas that I have just given up on though.  The chord to the transformer for the over-desk lighiting is one area.  I love that Ikea makes this stuff so it is "typical" and can easily be installed anywhere but it is all a bit bulky and hard to hide.  Short of hard-wiring it, there isn't much I can do so I guess I'll live with it.

Another thing is the Flor.  I love the Flor carpet tile.  I like how it looks and wears.  What I don't like is where the casters of the chair run over it, the tiles separate.  I have tried to re-glue these with more tape and stickers but they keep coming apart.  I may have to flip the sucker over and duct tape the suckers.

In the next few days, I'll hopefully get around to blogging about the living/entertainment area and the play area.  At that point, my procrastination will be complete and I'll have to start attacking some wood upstairs.  

Basement is Finished

I put some of the finishing touches on the basement this weekend.  The major piece was to assemble the Flor carpeting system.  I chose two different types of tiles for the basement.  At the office area, I chose a series of colors in the "Feelin' Groovy" pattern to harmonize with the colors in the chips in the epoxy floor.  I don't think it came out too bad for a guy is genetically disposed to color-blindness.

The Flor system is pretty simple to assemble.  I did it a little different than they suggest though.  They have you lay out the floor and then lift up corners and use their "stickers" to hold things together by placing them under where you lift up.  It was a bit more cumbersome but I was able to achieve a tighter fit of tiles by assembling the entire rug upside down and adhering stickers on the back.  Some of it comes loose when you flip it over but I still think the results were better.   It was a little trickier with the carpet I chose for the TV area.  There, I used a higher pile and the pile is prone to getting stuck between the two tile's backing, making a small gap.  With a little patience, I was able to get rid of this though.

Of course, the final installation is not how I planned so now I need to order one more tile for it to be finished.  We are keeping the saw-tooth look at the bathroom end but want to square it off at the closet side.

 Another project was organizing the myriad of wires in the basement.  When we had the gigantic entertainment center, this was not an issue as it could all just be stuffed in the back and nothing was seen.  Now we have a smaller TV stand and I used plastic conduit to organize the chords.  I may end up painting it to match the walls.  You can still see it but it is not as annoying as having a sea of worms along the walls and floor.

 The only thing missing is the couch.  We ordered a sectional from Macy's and are waiting until November for its delivery.  You would think they could build us a whole new house by then.  We'd also like to find a way to put some photos up.  Perhaps a picture shelf or some similar device.

This is not a project we chose to take on but we are pretty happy with the results.  We have a little organizing to do in the office area and there is some re-finishing I'd like to do at the soffit at the stairs but otherwise, I consider this project complete.

Back in the basement

It's been six weeks since I woke up to water in the basement and with the assistance of some hired help the past few weeks, I finally got the room in livable condition and put all of the trim up.  I have some painting to do but otherwise, I have started moving stuff back into the basement.  Too bad my camera is sucking right now or I'd have a better pic up here.

I went out today and got a new desk and computer cart from CB2 and we went to Ikea and bought a few other things yesterday (note the many boxes of items "to be assembled".  One cool thing is that Ikea had their birch-looking "Lack" shelf back in stock so I can also complete the bathroom.

There are still no rugs so it feels a bit cold down here.  It doesn't matter as long as we can reclaim our dining room and I can begin setting up the home office again.  I am very disorganized these days and behind on many many things.  Hopefully, now that I am up and running again in a "permanent" spot, I can start to catch up. 

Just Like New

So there was this table.  We are going to use it as our coffee table in the basement.  The issue was whether or not to refinish it.  After spending a couple hours in the basement today relocating lighting and readying things for re-installing the baseboard, I decided to get outside and take on a small project.

The cigarette and glass mark stains have to go. 

After an hour or so of elbow grease, a few pads of sandpaper, and then a coat of tung oil, the table is looking pretty good.   

It still has some very faint scratches if you look very close.  Hopefully they will make my wife happy as I think they give the piece a little character - just not as much as it had before.  I think its going to look great in the rehabbed basement.

Shiny New Floor

After letting the base coat dry overnight, I mixed the top coat and rolled that on.  The milky consistency made it easy to make sure that I covered the entire area.     

It took a night to dry and when it was finished, I was left with a very shiny new floor.  It looks pretty good and I am happy with hit.  It feels pretty solid as well.  

There are a couple things to note about this system.  I got the water based, low VOC formula and it is great in that respect.  I was prepared for a major home ventilation to keep it from smelling like a paint factory.  But though it smells a bit when you first put it down,by the end of the day you can walk around the room and not even know that you did any painting/sealing in it.  This was the case for both the base coat and the top coat.  

Also, there are tons of warnings in the literature about how slippery the final surface is and it makes recommendations all over to add a sand or traction element to the final coat.  I didn't do this because I didn't want the rough surface.  I don;t have second thoughts about that but the surface is VERY slick.  If it weren't for the imperfections in the concrete, the final coat makes this thing look like there is a sheet of clear ice over it.  It behaves that way as well.  Fun for little kids in socks, not so much for someone that slips and falls.  I think that if I used this in a garage, I would add the grit to the finish.  

Now it's time to get the trim up and finish patching and painting.