Where to start? The jackhammer!

With so many things to do on the house, it can be a bit overwhelming sometimes to figure what needs to be done first. We start talking about something that we want to do to the house, and then we realize that before we do that thing, this other thing needs to be done first. Oh, but before we can do that other thing, there are these two other bits of work that need to be done.

My wife and I love the "finish work" -- you know, the nice aesthetic things that make a house a real gem. But before we get to any of that, we've realized that there are a lot of "infrastructure" improvements that need to be made. Although we had two or three options as to our first substantial work effort, getting the basement waterproofed recently became an obvious first step. Our recent Spring rains made it clear that we needed to just bite the bullet and fix the basement.

A little over nine years ago, we owned a house that was built back in the 1940's. It had the same classic leaky basement problems as our current home. We had a company trench out along the inside of the basement and install a sump pump. Let me tell ya, these guys earned their money. The basement in that house was what I call a "bathtub basement" -- that is, the entire basement was completely underground; there was no way to walk out of the basement, except going upstairs to the main level. What that meant was that all of the concrete that was broken out had to be schlepped upstairs, two 5-gallon bucket-loads at a time. As you can imagine, these guys were hulks.

The trench/sump system worked like a charm in our other house, so we called the contractor back to give us a bid on our current basement. The company we used is locally owned, but is a franchise of a national company, Basement Systems. The parent company's website is www.basementsystems.com. I highly recommend you have a local representative come look at your basement if you are having water problems. We looked at several companies before we selected Basement Systems and no one had as good a solution. Don't let a contractor talk you into digging out all around the outside of your house with a backhoe (likely destroying all your landscaping) -- this interior trench system really works.

The bid came back quite a bit higher than we were hoping, so we opted for a lower priced sump pump (the one they initially recommended consisted of a pump, a back-up pump, and a battery back-up pump). Since our basement will always remain a workshop, finishing room, and HVAC room, we didn't need the extra security of the deluxe pump system. Worst case, if the power goes out or the pump fails, the water will overflow into the floor drain that is just a couple of feet from the sump.

One other somewhat crazy idea I had to save money was to ask the contractor if they would lower their bid if I jackhammered the trench in the basement myself. After some figuring, they offered to knock $1700 off of the price of the job if I did the jackhammering and prep work myself. Being a cheapskate (and always looking for an opportunity to use a new power tool!), I decided to rent a jackhammer and give it a try. It was about as cheap to rent the jackhammer for a week as it was for three days, so I just kept the thing for a week, which set me back $210. I also had to rent a roll-off dumpster from the city so I would have a place to dump all that broken concrete. I haven't had the city pick up the dumpster just yet, so I'm not sure what the total charges will be. They charge a fee to pick up the dumpster, plus a per ton charge. We'll just have to see how much money I actually ended up saving when it is all said and done.

The day after the contractor installed the trench system and sump pump, we had a torrential rain. Not a drop of water in the basement! Woo hoo! It rained again a couple of times last week and the basement stayed dry. Our first milestone done!

This coming week will also be a banner week. On Tuesday, an electrician will be upgrading the electrical panel to 200-amp service. Then on Wednesday, we meet with the architect we've chosen to begin discussing plans for our kitchen remodel and our master bedroom addition.

Off to bed with me. Maybe I'll dream about jackhammers.....