VFD, Environmental Criminal

My neighbor on one side (house built on top of a spring) had to have their new kitchen floor torn up a bit so the foundation people could prevent the kitchen from collapsing into the ground. My neighbor on the other side says his foundation guy said his house will just keep sinking as long as the weather is bone-dry for years on end.

The gaps in the ground around our home are no-kidding big enough you can reach under the foundation in places. All the way round there is 2-4" of clearance between the ground and the sides of the slab. That's what happens when you build on clay in a normal year and then have record droughts for a few years. The other day I noticed that our gas meter is at a crazy angle, and that was the final straw.

Bless me algore for I have acted in my own self-interest. Today we bought a couple hundred feet of soaker hose and made a loop around the house. The hose bib was turned on and left on. We'll see what the water bill looks like, but I took some before photos and we'll also see what the clay looks like after a while.

VFD, You're in an extreme DROUGHT! WTH don't you want to conserve water?!

Blah, blah, blah. Our grass is brown where it's not missing, that's how often we water the lawn. You go tell my neighbor across the street with a green carpet-lawn about water conservation, and then tell the ones down the road to stop taking 150-gallon baths, then we'll talk. This soaker hose is possibly saving me a $30,000 repair bill. That, and it's recharging the aquifer, government style! (take a little off the top and send the resource right back where it came from)

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Update: my Darling Wife just locked the back door. This morning #1 couldn't work the mechanism to let the dawgs outside. Tonight, she says the deadbolt throws without any effort. I take this as a sign of progress.