Fear of Flooding

In case you haven't noticed, Calgary is a city of somewhat "extreme" weather. We can have temperature changes of 40 to 50 degrees C in a matter of days when winter cold snaps turn to Chinooks. We regularly get snow in May. We sometimes get the Northern Lights. But the weather statistic most relevant to our basement renovation project is that this city averages about 22 thunderstorms per year. And, Calgary is on the edge of Alberta's so called "hailstorm alley", so summer thunderstorms are often accompanied by golf-ball sized hail or better.

In July 2004, both Edmonton and Calgary were struck by torrential downpours that led to flash floods in some areas. Our neighbourhood in Calgary was one of the worst hit. Cars were literally stuck in drifts of hail. On the main boulevard water came up to the windows of SUVs...

Our home is close to the bottom of a hill and is in a perfect location to collect water when it floods. However, that year, we were extremely lucky. While neighbours around us bailed water out of their basements, we remained dry. In fact, in many storms since then, we have remained dry while others fared less well.

Today, however, we realized just how many close calls we may have had.

We had a visit from The Remodelers project manager (Steve) and architectural technologist (Paul) to begin detailed planning on our project.

While Paul and I were busy discussing the artistry of the staircase and requirements for our new media room, my husband and Steve were busy investigating much less glamourous aspects of the project. Like... how will the new hot-water-on-demand unit vent to the outside? And, with the old hot water heater gone, will we need to insert a lining into our existing furnace chimney to handle the smaller volume of BTUs? (I have learned the chimney has to be just the right size so that yukky stuff doesn't condense inside before it can get out...)

But perhaps their most startling discovery was this...

I'll give you the technical explanation: it's a giant puddle of mukky murky water sitting about two inches under our basement floor.

But apparently when we call the City of Calgary to investigate whether there's a problem with the storm sewer, we should use the official terminology... "Fear of flooding."  (OK, I admit, when I said "we" in that last sentence, it was actually stretching the truth a bit. Let's face it, my husband is certainly the one who's going to take care of this particular project task, and I am unlikely to even be in the house when the City guy shows up. I'll be at the design centre choosing paint that day.)

Anyway, we should also DEFINITELY leave the existing roughed-in bathroom plumbing exactly where it is. (Imagine jackhammering the concrete to move the plumbing and having gallons of muck shoot up into your face. I could be over-dramatizing a bit here, but you get the idea.)   I have total confidence that Paul is now highly motivated to find an aesthetically pleasing way to design our basement without moving the bathroom.

There are various measures that one could take to deal with a waterlogged drainage system, but almost none of them are even close to ideal. At this point, I'm hoping there's just a bit of ice in the city storm sewer that's causing it to back up. Those friendly folks at the City Water Services department could just poke it out with a 40 foot pole and we could be on our merry way.

We've been lucky so far... maybe the slope away from our house is just the perfect grade to keep us safe from flooding. On the other hand, if we do nothing, Murphy's Law says that as soon as we put in the new carpet, it will be ruined by the next summer downpour.

If you are an engineering type who's reading this, now would be a good time to offer your brilliant suggestions.

Steve investigates the water table under our house. We actually
are quite grateful he discovered this potential problem now rather
than after it's too late to do anything.