We have now been back in our house for 6 months and are still thrilled with the results. I still think it has been a great investment. The last week has made us thankful that we did not live in our house during the construction!
A few days before Christmas, we got almost 2 feet of snow, and then on Christmas Day it was 50 degrees and it rained - a lot! We had water in the OLD part of our basement. Our new basement was dry (except for where the water from the old basement dribbled in) because of a drain system and sump pump installed when we did the addition. This has been an on-and-off problem for several years although we have never identified the exact cause - probably coming through the floor. So, when talking to Jim Cole, our builder, about some small outstanding items to fix, we asked him about the floor. He suggested a drain system which involved jack-hammering a trench along 2 walls of our old basement, putting in a sump pump, and piping it to the outside. We basically hired him on the spot (again) to fix that. Our thinking was that if we are going to finish the new part of our basement, then we don't ever want to have to worry about water leaking in.
The project has taken a little over a week, and is pretty much done except for hooking up the pump. I feel peace of mind already! Hopefully we won't have to make any more long-distance emergency phone calls to our neighbors for fear of our basement being flooded!
Once again, we confirmed that we made the right decision to move out during the renovation. Even this small project has created such a crazy amount of dust in our house (despite loads of plastic barriers), that we are anxious for it to be finished.
I'll post pictures shortly, along with some final pictures of the renovation (not sure if I did that ever).
