Little Gerda Goes Forward with Courage and Safety

[Rita]

Job, thank you for stopping by! I always get a boost when I see a post from you!

It's also very validating to hear that you see my sitch this way, since you of all of us have seen it ALL! I guess all MLCers have some things in common but it sounds like yours and mine had more than their share. Was your H's father a terror too? I think that had a lot to do with it for mine. Or almost everything to do with it. Mine was so focused on being a great father because of what his did to him, had so many books about fatherhood, Fatherless America, etc., and then he became the worst father EVER.

And thank you for the kind words and comments, Sage and Scout! I am glad to have made friends with you gals and hope that one day you will find yourself in my city and we can meet for a drink and a hug like Grace and I did! (That goes for all my friends here!)

I have a house question for DnJ! I just got up to my cabin, only here for a night. And horror of horrors, I went to the basement and discovered that my beautiful subfloor was WET!!!! I am not sure what happened but there was a power outage up here last week and then rain upon rain upon snow upon rain, a deluge with floods. I am on a hill but I guess the groundwater was swellin? It looks like my sump pump either stopped working or was overwhelmed. I need you to come over and take a look!

Oh, you can't?

OK, well -- I called the handyman and he may come by tomorrow. Around here that means he may come by in two weeks.

He said that if my sump pump truly failed the whole basement would be flooded.

I have had a reasonably dry just damp basement for like ten years, and now that I put in (most of) that subfloor -- FLOODORAMA. The dehumidifer was also off. So I turned that on and started a heater like Sensei DnJ told me last time. But many of the subfloor panels are damp and swollen and the seams pulled apart on some of them. I couldn't finish installing them yet because I not only ran out of panels but also ran out of time. So I was going to finish it in a month or so when I am up here for a little longer. But now many have "un-seamed" and Gerda-of-the-not-manly-arms may have trouble pounding them back in without that helper guy. (The helper guy btw really screwed up my mini-split DIY install so now I am waiting on a real HVAC guy to come fix the set-up so I can turn the sucker on. The helper guy was good at some stuff but not HVAC!)

Anyway the point is -- do you have any words of wisdom on this sump pump issue? How often does one need one? What should I do in short and long term about it? I don't think I want to learn how to stick my hand in the sump pump, no matter how encouraging you are. Handyman will tell me what to do if he shows up but I was hoping for your second opinion.