Driveway

Preface to Driveway Story: So I decided to take the week of July 24th off since my boss with with his family and I was already taking a couple of days for the reunion. Tuesday, July 26th I spent the day running errands. (Well, that is after going to see the final "Harry Potter" movie which was excellent!) I decided to go to Costco to pick up some items I needed. I got caught there while a torrential downpour was happening outside. Costco must have loved it because everyone was lingering inside, no one ventured out in the pouring rain. It was coming down so hard that in the middle of Costco Joni could hear it over the phone. Wow! Well, once the rain let up, I headed home.

When I got there, I took some of the items down to my storage room. When I walked in I noticed water that had made its way to this room under the wall. I walked around and found that water was flooding in through the cold storage area that is under my back stair. I got it all cleaned up, a fan turned on to dry things out and headed back upstairs, firm in the knowledge that Dad was going to come over the next day and check it out. I finished putting things away and started on a project when the zipper in the clouds opened up again and the torrential rain began instantaneously. I ran downstairs to see what was happening. "Good," I thought. "Now I can really see where the water is coming in."

Boy did I ever. It was coming in so much, that it was raining inside the box and the water had already made it down my wall and instead of going the way it went before, into my storage room, now it was heading the other direction toward my carpet and furniture. "OH NO!!!" I ran outside to the garage to get some buckets. Just getting from my house to the garage I got soaked. Ran the buckets downstairs and instead of rain, I had a wall of water going across the opening to this box. I hurriedly put the buckets in place, moved furniture, rolled back carpet, turned the fan back on and headed back outside to see what I could do to solve the issue. Dad came over and helped get a couple some temporary preventative measures in place.

Next day, Dad called a guy in his ward that does concrete work. He came over to take a look at it. He said that my driveway and back step would need to be torn out and replaced. That was the only way of fixing this problem. Neither the step nor the driveway were tied into the house with re-bar so they had sunk and were starting to pull away. Fun!!!

I scheduled with them to come the day after my boss left town on an international trip. Thursday, August 18th, they came and started the work. Here are a few shots during the two day project.

A before picture:

The tear-out has begun! Goodbye cracked ugly driveway and problematic back step!

That hole was the culprit. That leads right into the basement.

 Now it is boarded up and ready for concrete. No more storage area under the stairs. Oh well...never used it anyway. Until the flooding, I had never even looked inside it so I am definitely not going to miss it.

These guys were amazing but I must say, I was glad my neighbors were away for the week. It was a loud process. Looks like we are ready to pour.

Friday morning began the pouring. I was very blessed. The weather had said we had a chance of rain. Heavenly Father heard my prayers and the rain never was a factor. It rained on Saturday afternoon but by then we were fine.

Uh oh...Do you see what I see???

The concrete trucks drove up on the driveway that was fine, no cracks in it. After they were done, the closest pad looked like this:

What you can't really tell is the extent of the damage. The pad above was cracked all throughout and the pad closest to the street had damage as well but not as severe. This is how my driveway looked after they were done with that day's pour.

They ended coming back this last Monday and Tuesday. Tore out the remaining two pads and poured them as well. It looks really good but I'm not looking forward to the bill. Needless-to-say, this week has been the hottest week of the year and my car is parked on the street. Thank goodness for those two crab apple trees I have that shade that area. I park under that and head in the front door.

Overall, this experience was a real blessing and I know that my Heavenly Father was watching out for me. Had I not decided to take that Tuesday off, I never would have gone to Costco. Had I not gone to Costco, I never would have seen the water from the first storm. Had I not seen the water from the first storm, I never would have thought to check during that second storm. Had I not checked during that second storm, I wouldn't have had the buckets and other temporary preventative measures in place to protect the basement from the water. Had I not done those things, who knows what the damage would have been. We had storms all week that week of July. The water would have been everywhere. I am forever grateful that He was watching out for me.