The Ditch is Done!

We have had water problems in this house since the day we moved in. The latest was that there was standing water underneath our sun room. To fix the standing water problem we had to get to the problem, which meant tearing up the deck:

Thanks to Shane for helping Philip do this while I was on retreat! After tearing the deck up we realized that we have standing water under our sun room because over half of the back yard drains to the lowest spot, which happens to be under the sun room. Our friend Curt is a water resources engineer and he came over and helped Philip plan a french drain, which is really just a gigantic ditch with a corrugated tube and gravel in it.....

Special thanks to Curt, Justin, Shane, and Tony for helping us dig this ditch! Also, thanks to Sara for delivering lunch! All in all we had one physicist, one water resources engineer, one biomedical engineer, and two electrical engineers working to dig a ditch! We may have had overqualified help, but we payed them in gumbo, so I think it worked out.

Now as the backyard drains towards the house hopefully the ditch will stop the water from getting to us. Instead it will pipe the water all the way around the sun room and out the other side of the house down the hill!

After two half days of hauling 2.88 tons of gravel to the back yard in buckets (thanks Tony and Ann!) we have a finished project:

Now, to put the deck back together....

If you want to see more detailed pictures you can look here. Also, I wanted to add that I am so grateful to have a husband that is willing to work this hard to make sure our home is a safe place to live! Thanks Philip!!