Rain Rain GO AWAY!!!

It seems like every heavy rainstorm means a flooded basement these days! Now that we've pinpointed a couple (hopefully that's all of them!) entry points, we know where to watch on rainy days like today. So I did, allllll day and watched and worried and watched and worried. On Monday I bought some drain spout diverters so that instead of funneling all the rain from the roof down into the ground by the foundation, it will run 25 feet away from the house and on a downward slope away from the house. We also put buckets outside in places where there's a gap between the eavestroughing and the house. Huge puddles were forming in those spots so we caught as much as we could and I dumped those out periodically through the day. By mid afternoon I started hauling up all our lovely interlocking foam flooring. It doesn't get damaged by the water but it gets dirty and stinky and has to all be wiped down with disinfectant afterwards. I decided not to risk it this time and got all absorbent toys, clothes and the foam tiles all up off the floor. So of course no water came in! Oh well, it's not like picking up around here is going to hurt us and it's better than 8 hours of shopvaccing through the night!

Hopefully our $70 solution will provide some relief from the rain invasion. Murray did notice a couple spots where the floor was getting damp today and upon closer inspection, he found some cracks. Could it be so simple as patching/sealing/fixing a couple cracks in the foundation??? Could we really avoid an expensive excavation all around the house to inspect a draintile that may or may not be faulty??? Oh let's hope so!!!