Boiling AND Humid...

Yeah, I know, like everywhere else.  Today we're dealing with heat indicies over 100 - that is, once you combine the dewpoint, near 80, with the temperature, in the low 90s, so yeah, it's brutal.  

Not sure how long our luck is going to hold out.  I live in the south metro of Minneapolis, and we have been pretty lucky for years.  Once, back shortly after we had kids, a large thunderstorm came right over our apartment, and damaged one of the fake chimneys.  The buildings had been set up to put large water tanks in these things to use gravity to power the sprinkler system - and so the destroyed chimney let loose a flood.  Fortunately, our apartment was not damaged, a few down the hall were - but we got lucky.  

We have had some close calls, certainly, since then, but we have been lucky in that we have not seen any direct damage of any places we've lived.  We've seen plenty, but we have been lucky.  

We are also fortunate in the place we live now.  We're on a hill, which is relatively rare here in Minnesota.  The hill is on it's way down to a river, so there's that good news - any significant rains or downpours do travel past us.  We have occasional problems with water downstairs, but that is pretty much thanks to the older windows and leaky frames.  We have a semi-split-level basement - our bedroom, towards the front of the house, needed an enlarged egress well to get out of the house.  In the back of the house, we have a daylight laundry room where the windows are about 40" off the floor.  

The drawback to those windows is the rotting framing around them.  When we moved in, almost 10 years ago, we needed a way to get the cable TV line into the house.  I found a hole in the corner of the window frame about the size of a quarter.  It was plenty big for a coaxial cable line, so I filled it in with lint and caulk, but I need to reapply annually, because if I don't and we have a lot of snow late in the winter that melts quickly, some of it will end up in the basement - which no one wants.  I've considered creating a caulk "dam" on the floor, building a small ridge of caulk to direct any water towards the floor drain.  It probably would not work, but the thought occurred.

I'm still planning on building a base for the washer.  Someone in washer design never had a dog, or they would have done a bit more thinking.  The very nice washer we still have has a "filter" down at the bottom of the unit, about 3" off the floor.  When the washer is used, any hair or other debris that comes off the clothes gets caught in this filter.  Being the lowest part of the water cycle in the washer, there's always water in it, no matter how long ago you used it.  So when you need to clear the trap, you open it, and water flows out.

So my plan is to build a short riser to set the washer up on, that would have a funnel below where this filter opens, with a hose running over to the floor drain, so when it's opened, the water flows into the drain, not all over the floor.  Yes, I'm likely going to over build the thing by using treated lumber so exposure to water isn't a problem.  It would be a simple 2x6 on edge, attached to a 2x4, laying flat, so the whole thing would lift the washer 7" off the floor.  Should be plenty of room.  

Other than that, staying busy with the new job, I'm settling in and getting things done, and have been a bit challenged in getting moved around a bit, but it's good for me.  A chance to learn.