Author: DOuG pRATt

Sumpy, my trusty basement sump pump, has had it easy for more than ten years. He hasn’t needed to run since my next door neighbors installed sump pumps in their house.

Monday’s storm was so bad that it woke up Sumpy. He’s been running every few minutes for the past 24 hours. I’m glad he was able to hold his water until after the electricity came back on. Otherwise, if I hadn’t caught it in time to get the generator running, there would have been a mess to clean up in the basement.

I used to have a couple of PVC drain pipes that fit together to extend the outside outlet and take the water away from the house. I still have them, but as mentioned here a while ago, they were used by the landscaping contractor for the downspout drain project, so I had to improvise.

In the garage I had a long, plastic shipping tube from a video projector screen project. The tube seemed like a perfect replacement for the pipes that are now buried underground, but when I dropped it on the ground it broke in two! Despite being much thicker than the other pipes, it’s actually much more fragile.

Forced to improvise again, I knew that duct tape wouldn’t be good enough to hold the two pieces together. Then I remembered the roll of aluminum tape I bought when replacing the dryer vent.

It worked! And I was wondering if I would ever have another use for that expensive roll of aluminum tape.

I’m going to reward myself for a successful hack with an Elvis Special — a peanut butter and banana sandwich. I won’t fry it the Elvis way, but I’ll toast the bread.