From my recent update a few days ago, I shared a very important lesson learned:

concrete + pipes = BAD

Our house seems to have a love-hate relationship with water.  The majority of things that have gone wrong in this house relate to water, so I suppose it’s become some sort of sick joke.  From the major roof leaks in our guest bedroom and office, to a burst pipe leaving water pouring out of the ceiling in our basement laundry room, to a backed up clean-out that had to be replaced in late 2009…with our latest little endeavour, I’d have to estimate that we have spent close to $5,000 in water-related “incidents”.  Oh, the joys of home ownership.

So, to summarize our recent adventure, here’s what happened: as Christian and I tackled the latest of our reno projects (most recently, the front porch reno), Christian was busy mixing mortar for our tiles, and, although dating farther back but still having impact on this story, Christian had also been doing some concrete work on our back steps. 

Well, with our built-in-the-1930s 3-inch diameter pipes that twisted and turned under the floor of the basement apartment, concrete and mortar “bits” don’t fare too well when it comes to those small nooks and crannies.  What had happened over the past year or so, is that bits of concrete and mortar had gone down the drain and had found a new home in which to expand = our pipes.

What ensued was that every time it would rain, the water would come down the steps towards the basement door, and instead of going down the trench drain that Christian had put in, or even down the drain in the downstairs laundry room, it basically pooled and overflowed. 

So we called our friend Neil at Drainforce (they don’t have a site, but we’ve used them twice and they’ve been fair and reliable so wanted to provide a number for y’all) to come on down.  The conrete in our pipes was so bad, that he couldn’t even get his scope through to “scope out” the situation (get my joke?  Scope out? Yep, barrel o’ laughs over here…)

Neil and his team were great, although Christian and I were super depressed to learn that the problem extended through our newly finished floor.  All in all, the team had to break up about 30 square feet of concrete and tile, replace the pipe, and re-pour the concrete.  Here’s a “drying-stage” photo….I love the added drama of the CAUTION tape:

And here’s another angle of the damage – you can see the big trench drain I was talking about.  Please, try not to focus on the ugly conrete steps…there on the “down the road” list, we promise:

While Christian typically chooses to do this type of work himself, time was of the essence, and it turned out we fixed this in the nick of time, as Toronto and surrounding areas were hit was a serious storm on Sunday.  This was the ultimate test.  Christian and I were actually in the downstairs laundry room when the heavens opened and Noah’s flood came down the stairs…well, our $$$ were well spent – not a drop flowed onto the floor!  Everything went down the shiny, new, non-concrete filled pipe!  VICTORY!  Thanks Neil!!!

The hardest part for us was trying to match the floor tile.  Seriously, has anyone tried to do this before?  Impossible.  We were lucky enough to find about 9 tiles leftover in the garage that the previous home-owners had left us, but we needed about 29.  So off to Lowe’s and Rona we went, sample tile in tow.

I wish I had a picture of this, but it was such a work-night rush to get what we needed that I forgot the camera.  I was litterally on all fours in the middle of the aisle, comparing and contrasting 6 different tiles.  Good rule of thumb that I learned: go for the overall colour tones of the tile and try not to get too caught up with the pattern.  When it comes to grout, go darker than you think, espeically when replacing new tiles within an old floor – the older grout will always look less clean (it took me two trips to Home Depot to figure that one out).

And thus concludes our water-logged drama….and the basement has returned to normal (mis-matched yet barely noticeable tiles and all):

I sincerely hope that we are done with water drama for the next several years….and you know what, Madonna, I do not want to sing about rain right now, or think about any more water in or around our house.  At all.  Thank you, and good night.