Another Project

Another home project is set to begin in the very near future. We will be receiving an entire new guttering system. Complete with spouts that run where we need them to rather than out on the ground near the house where it won't go anywhere but in our basement. When it's a nice slow rain we don't see a problem, but like a lot of places in the Midwest, Springfield is not really known for its gentle rains. Rather, rain comes to us like we did something to anger it. Torrents of high powered H2O ammunition explode on everything. It's this type of rain that the lay of our property cannot handle. Huge puddles form and become stagnant. The water soaks into the ground right by the house and finds its way into our basement. Usually, it's only an inch or two of water localized at the low point in the basement floor at worst, but this spring has been a record breaking wet one. We've seen the entire basement wall to wall with over 5 inches of water twice.

We bought a sump pump which will solve the flooding problem, but I still need to break through a spot of concrete in the basement floor and then dig a hole and line it with a 5 gallon bucket in order to install it. And then, of course, I need to find a way to send the PVC out through the foundation wall. I don't have a drill for that job.

The new gutters will look nice, add value to our home, solve the flooding problem, get rid of our massive mosquito problem, and help put a little food on the table for the guy that does it, because I'm not doing it. I may get up there to install new soffit and fascia, but there's no way I'm going up there to install guttering. It would take me a week, and I'd be sure to screw up the angles. We'd wind up with an entire set of new problems. No, we'll have a professional do it who guarantees his work.

I'm really excited about getting rid of the mosquitoes. Our yard was plagued with them last summer. We felt like the Egyptians during Moses' campaign to "let his people go". Their presence was stemming from the breeding ground that is our current guttering system. Full of wet leaves, the current guttering system is a perfect haven for a mosquito to settle down, get married, and have a few thousand children. The new gutters will even have a leaf guard to help prevent any need of maintenance. And let me tell you, I like the idea of maintenance free.

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