Ever since my house was built, I’ve been trying unsuccessfully to dry out the perpetually damp basement. But this year, after suffering through one of the rainiest summers on record, my basement no longer was damp…it was drenched.
I’m not talking about puddles of water on the floor – I’m talking about water being absorbed from outside, right through the porous concrete walls. Every time I have to go down to the basement, I feel as if I should change my name to Sponge Sally Square-Pants.
Over the years, I have had countless estimates from professionals who promised to transform my soggy basement into the Sahara – for a “bargain” price that would require me to take out a second (or third or fourth) mortgage. Needless to say, I never hired anyone.
So last week, after a particularly heavy rainstorm, I decided to search online for a do-it-yourself way to keep my basement’s walls dry. One ad immediately caught my attention.
"Damp basement?" it said. "Tired of wet walls and musty smells? We have the permanent solution – guaranteed!"
And the more I read, the more intrigued I became. The product was a concrete sealer, but, according to the ad, no ordinary sealer. No, this one was purported to be vastly different, a miracle of modern science. Instead of just sealing the outer surface of the concrete, it supposedly penetrated three or more inches into it and actually changed the makeup of the concrete, chemically reacting to the free lime in it and causing a strong, impenetrable silicate bond to form.
The advertisement also said that anyone could easily apply the sealer with a pump sprayer – no professional help needed.
It sounded like the answer to my prayers. So I ordered the five-gallon bucket of the stuff, which supposedly would cover 1,000 square feet, about half of my basement. I figured I could try it out on just one long wall and then if it worked, I’d order some more of it later. I continued to read more information about the product, mainly the brief summary about how to apply it.
"The concrete must be dry before the sealer can be applied, or it will not be effective," the ad said.
I frowned. How was I supposed to dry out walls that had been wet since the first day they were poured? I mean, wasn’t the fact they’d never been dry the reason why I was ordering the miracle sealer in the first place? I finally dragged a couple floor fans down to the basement and aimed them directly at the wall. I wanted the concrete to be as dry as possible by the time the sealer arrived.
Three days later, I came home from running an errand and found a huge box on the front porch. I was pleased to discover it contained a sealed plastic bucket of the concrete sealer. I stopped being pleased, however, when I tried to lift it out of the box. The darned thing felt as if it weighed about 150 lbs.
Still standing on the porch, I pulled the instructions out of the box and started to read them. The first step said to shake the bucket to evenly mix the contents.
Shake the bucket?! Even an Olympic weightlifter would have had trouble shaking the darned thing! But I was desperate to try out the product, so I knew I had to find some way to shake the contents.
I finally tipped the box onto its side, dragged out the bucket and then rolled it back and forth across the porch until I was pretty sure the contents were mixed.
The instructions then said to pour some of the sealer into a pump-sprayer container – not an empty Windex bottle – no, the heavy-duty kind of container similar to what bug exterminators use. Luckily I had one that I'd intended to use to spray the weeds in the yard, but never did.
Seeing that I couldn't lift the bucket to pour anything out of it, I dragged it to the edge of the porch and stood it up there. Then I opened the top of the sprayer container and set it on the ground directly below, trying to perfectly line them up.
I unsealed the bucket and with great effort, tipped it and allowed some of the fluid to pour out. To my surprise, it looked like plain water. I stuck my finger into it and sniffed it. No odor. I rubbed some of it between my thumb and forefinger. It even felt like plain water.
My aim at lining up the two containers turned out to be slightly off, so I ended up pouring more of the sealer onto the lawn than I did into the sprayer container. My grass probably will repel water for the next 10 years.
The next step in the instructions actually made my mouth fall open. It said to use a mop dunked in water to dampen all of the walls and floors to be treated.
Dampen the wall? The wall I'd just spent the last three days with floor fans set on turbo-blast blowing on it and cranking up my electric bill because the previous instructions had said it needed to be bone-dry?
Reluctantly, because I was so confused by then, I mopped down my test wall. The concrete sucked up the water like a sponge. So I mopped it again. It still looked dry. I finally gave up and grabbed the sprayer.
"Before you spray, cover all of the windows to protect the glass," the instructions stated.
I looked up at the cobweb-covered windows with heaven-only-knows-what lurking in every corner, and cringed. Thrusting my hands anywhere near those things wasn't very high on my "eager to do" list. Still, I was determined, so I grabbed a chair and a stack of cardboard and covered the two windows on that wall.
My sprayer was one of those gallon containers with a pump handle on top and a spray nozzle on the end of a hose on the side. I pumped the handle, then pressed the sprayer button.
"Spray until the walls glisten," the instructions said.
So I sprayed, pumped it and sprayed again…and pumped it and sprayed again.
It took me over an hour, but I finally managed to cover most of that one basement wall with the sealer
"Allow the treated surface to dry for three days," the instructions said. "And during that time, do not allow it to rain."
I started laughing. How could I not "allow" it to rain? Go outside and do an anti-rain dance? Threaten any incoming rain clouds?
So if any of you have plans for the weekend and are afraid your plans might get rained out, have no fear.
I won't allow it.
# # #
Sally Breslin is an
award-winning syndicated humor columnist who has written regularly for
newspapers and magazines all of her adult life. She is the author of several
novels in a variety of genres, from humor and romance to science-fiction.
Contact her at: sillysally@att.net.
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