We got hit with four inches of rain in one hour the other night, water
was running across my backyard about six inches deep, across the
cul-de-sac about that much too.

It found a nice low spot against my back foundation, poured in there,
ran along an outside wall (under the house between the garage and the
non-studio side of the basement) until it found two nice spots to come
in through.

My basement/studio is semi-finished, mainly due to occasional water
problems but man this was the worst. I can't really complain as it was
only a half inch to an inch in aobut 70% of the area, but I'm having
to pull out all the gear, unplug everything and pull out the carpets
(one of which is kinda old anyway so it will get trashed).

Back in the winter we had two feet of snow, followed by a warming
spell and then two inches of rain and I was ok then...but not this
time.

I guess all the studios in New Orleans are on the 2nd floor.

Analogeezer

Analogeezer wrote:

My basement/studio is semi-finished, mainly due to occasional water
problems but man this was the worst. I can't really complain as it was
only a half inch to an inch in aobut 70% of the area, but I'm having
to pull out all the gear, unplug everything and pull out the carpets
(one of which is kinda old anyway so it will get trashed).

An inch? Man a while back I had 2 FEET of water in the basement!
And even worse, it didn't leak in, came GUSHING back up out of the
drain! Luckily I was home at the time and made the mad dash to
elevate expensive gear to higher ground. It did this every heavy rain
after the city "fixed" the sewer in my neighborhood so already
everything was elevated 6" from past encounters. Except the
rugs of course. My drumset is on a drumframe which elevates it
a few inches and gave me time to tear it down and get it upstairs
before the water hit the wood. Worst was the storage area on
a pallet which was NOT enough height. BLACK gunky water all
over the basement. Yuck! Had to take the hose to the place to
clean it up. Now all the pallets are sitting on 5 gal
plastic buckets to give a tad more height.

The good news, however, seems to be that I haven't had any problems
since the new apartments went in next door. I guess they
finally hooked up the new sewer lines the way God intended.
And we've had PLENTY of rain this year.
The raised pallets still stay though...

Happy rug hosing!
Been there, Done that!

Benj
--
SPAM-Guard! Remove .users (if present) to email me!

but I'm having
to pull out all the gear, unplug everything and pull out the carpets
(one of which is kinda old anyway so it will get trashed).


Oh man, I symaphize DEEPLY. I live in LA where it never rains, BUT my control
room was flooded during the El Nino storms of about 4 or 5 years ago. This
entailed pulling all the gear into the tracking room, pulling all the fabric
wall panels (now mostly water stained), ripping up the carpet & padding. In
short, a total disaster. The good part is, because LA County was declared a
disaster area, I was eligible for low interest FEMA loans, which I applied
toward a drainage system/sump pump & a total demolition remodel project which
netted me a much more useable space with about 50% more floor area than before,
(3 tracking rooms instead of 1, better access all around, etc). A silver
lining. Anyway, very sorry to hear of your extreme dampness, it is indeed a
drag. Good luck drying.

Scott Fraser

(Rick Powell) wrote in
om:

Sounds like you have bad drainage around the perimeter of your
studio.
Does the surrounding ground slope toward your studio also? I
made
the mistake of not elevating my studio foundation 1' above the
surronding ground as with my house. I solved a lot of the
problem by
cutting a v-ditch near the foundation to intercept and carry
away the
storm water. I could also use a drain tile around the perimeter
of
the studio also. Gutters and downspouts that empty into an
underground drain, rather than on the ground near the
foundation,
might help also.

RP


Sorry for the water woes. I'm with Rick, you can do some DIY
stuff as well as an interior perimeter drain system to a sump that
pumps outside, plus you can drain your de-humidifier into the
sump. If you want any tips give me a holler.

Mack

In article writes:

We got hit with four inches of rain in one hour the other night, water
was running across my backyard about six inches deep, across the
cul-de-sac about that much too.

I didn't watch it, but something like that must have happened at my
house, too. There's a former flower garden at the back of my yard that
I keep piled up with mulch to keep it from going totally to weeks, and
now about half of that mulch is in trails across my back yard. I had
just a little trace of water on the floor of my basement, not at all
like the swimming pool I apparently had during the February melt.

This is a great year for basement-drying companies.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers - )

ScotFraser wrote:
Oh man, I symaphize DEEPLY. I live in LA where it never rains,

But man, man it pours.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Back in February when we had the really bad snow storm in NY. I came home to
discover a water pipe had burst in my live room ceiling. I got home at 2:00
am and was pumping water out till 9:00. Luckily all my racks are on wheels
so my gear was ok but what a mess. I had to replace a huge chunk of ceiling,
the maple wood on a wall of the live room, all my acoustic treatments in the
area, rugs. studio floods really do suck
--Lou Gimenez
The Music Lab
2" 24track w all the Goodies
www.musiclabnyc.com



From: (Analogeezer)
Organization: http://groups.google.com/
Newsgroups: rec.audio.pro
Date: 12 Jul 2003 05:15:36 -0700
Subject: Studio Floods....Really Suck

We got hit with four inches of rain in one hour the other night, water
was running across my backyard about six inches deep, across the
cul-de-sac about that much too.

It found a nice low spot against my back foundation, poured in there,
ran along an outside wall (under the house between the garage and the
non-studio side of the basement) until it found two nice spots to come
in through.

My basement/studio is semi-finished, mainly due to occasional water
problems but man this was the worst. I can't really complain as it was
only a half inch to an inch in aobut 70% of the area, but I'm having
to pull out all the gear, unplug everything and pull out the carpets
(one of which is kinda old anyway so it will get trashed).

Back in the winter we had two feet of snow, followed by a warming
spell and then two inches of rain and I was ok then...but not this
time.

I guess all the studios in New Orleans are on the 2nd floor.

Analogeezer

(Analogeezer) wrote in message . com...
We got hit with four inches of rain in one hour the other night, water
was running across my backyard about six inches deep, across the
cul-de-sac about that much too.

It found a nice low spot against my back foundation, poured in there,
ran along an outside wall (under the house between the garage and the
non-studio side of the basement) until it found two nice spots to come
in through.

My basement/studio is semi-finished, mainly due to occasional water
problems but man this was the worst. I can't really complain as it was
only a half inch to an inch in aobut 70% of the area, but I'm having
to pull out all the gear, unplug everything and pull out the carpets
(one of which is kinda old anyway so it will get trashed).

Back in the winter we had two feet of snow, followed by a warming
spell and then two inches of rain and I was ok then...but not this
time.

I guess all the studios in New Orleans are on the 2nd floor.

Analogeezer
Glad you got along as well as you did... That perimeter drainage is
good advice. That's something I need to do myself; just to keep the
foundation and underside of the house dry. Down here in the NC coastal
plain agri-counties you see very few houses constructed with basements
but there's a certain little critter that loves dark wet places;
kinda' like a biege & brown tiger striped cricket on steroids and they
come up inside the house...YUCH! I bet bass would love em' though. I
came through a LOT of high water on the way to work tonight;
thunderstorms have been having a field day the last couple of weeks.
Our flooding down here is usually minor... unless it's from a
Hurricane; then it can get kinda' bad; I see we have a Tropical storm
down in the gulf... That time of year is on the way!

Went through this a couple years ago also. This a truly depressing
experience. Now I keep everything up high on banquet tables and use
synthetic fibre carpets that don't get moldy should it happen again. I
have central air, fortunately, which keeps the room dry all the time.
I have a couch that's disposable now since the last one was wrecked.
Prepare for the worst. hope for the best.

Bob Ross wrote in message ...
2" of water, 2'of water, whatever, consider yourselves lucky: A year and
a half ago I had a sewer backup into my basement, I had 3 inches of HUMAN
WASTE fill the room from wall to wall!

holy crap

How do I do that when my house is on the low end of a slope? Build a
moat?

If there's lower ground somewhere further beyond the house you can make what's
called a French drain or French tile, or maybe now you can call it a Freedom
drain if you value idiocy over intelliegence. It's kind of a rock filled moat,
but it has to have lower ground to empty out to.

Scott Fraser

In article writes:

If there's lower ground somewhere further beyond the house you can make what's
called a French drain or French tile, or maybe now you can call it a Freedom
drain if you value idiocy over intelliegence. It's kind of a rock filled moat,
but it has to have lower ground to empty out to.

True. Either that or install a pump and push it back uphill somewhere
down the block.

I've seem what people call a "French drain" but it's been a notch cut
around the basement floor, with a pump to get the water that collects
there out to the outdoors. What you're describing sounds like the same
thing only outside the house.

What I really need to do is build a drainage basin behind the house
and run a pipe from there down the driveway and out to the street
where the storm drain is. But for the $15,000 or so that all of that
digging and filling would cost me, I can put up with a damp basement
now and then.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers - )

A persistent water problem is a whole lot less painful than a single,
unexpected one. Now that I know where the water drips from the control
room ceiling, I know not to put the tape deck there. Simple. The
first time it happened though, that's exactly where the tape deck was
sitting.

ulysses

In article ,
Analogeezer wrote:

We got hit with four inches of rain in one hour the other night, water
was running across my backyard about six inches deep, across the
cul-de-sac about that much too.

It found a nice low spot against my back foundation, poured in there,
ran along an outside wall (under the house between the garage and the
non-studio side of the basement) until it found two nice spots to come
in through.

My basement/studio is semi-finished, mainly due to occasional water
problems but man this was the worst. I can't really complain as it was
only a half inch to an inch in aobut 70% of the area, but I'm having
to pull out all the gear, unplug everything and pull out the carpets
(one of which is kinda old anyway so it will get trashed).

Back in the winter we had two feet of snow, followed by a warming
spell and then two inches of rain and I was ok then...but not this
time.

I guess all the studios in New Orleans are on the 2nd floor.

Analogeezer

In article writes:

A persistent water problem is a whole lot less painful than a single,
unexpected one. Now that I know where the water drips from the control
room ceiling, I know not to put the tape deck there. Simple.

I used to have my 2" tape deck right under the place that a racoon
frequenting the attic at the time chewed a hole in the ceiling and
made himself a one-holer inhouse. Those drips weren't pure water.




--
I'm really Mike Rivers - )