Hurricane Florence Preparation...French Drain Part 1

Hi guys! It's been a hot minute since I've been on Steemit so I apologize for missing anyones comments or posts.

I've been extremely busy trying to get prepared for hurricane Florence here in North Carolina. In all honesty, I was pretty much already prepared for a disaster by having plenty of extra food, water, propane, gasoline, medications and enough guns and ammo to invade North Korea.

But you can never be too prepared. Even though I already had a nice stash of goodies, I still needed to get things done to prepare for power outages and possible flooding.

If everyone would try to stay prepared, then we wouldn't have shortages like we have been experiencing. This past Tuesday I stopped at a gas station close to my house to top off my gas tank in muh truck and the station was already out of diesel fuel and only had 2,000 gallons left of regular gasoline. Generators, water and other essentials were flying off the shelves and if you did find one, it would probably be priced much higher than usual. Our state did enact a law prohibiting price gouging during a state of emergency but some businesses are walking a fine line. Thank the stars above I already have a generator that can be plugged up right to my main breaker box. All I have to do is crank it, plug it in, flip a few breakers and my entire house is powered. Here's a picture I took of an overpriced generator and gas tank I saw at a local hardware store. 20 bucks for a plastic 5 gallon gas can...really??

So after servicing my generator, topping off fuel tanks and yada, yada, yada, I decided to start digging a french drain. This is something that I have been wanting to do for a while now but haven't wanted to turn loose of the money. I knew that it would be well over a thousand bucks with me doing all the work and I just haven't felt like starting such a task.

Well, Florence motivated me to go ahead and start the project since the very last thing I want or need is a flooded basement. Muh man cave, bathroom, extra bedroom and muh shop area is all down there so it's not like it's a bare unfinished basement that can be swept out.

So I needed a piece of equipment to dig a trench/ditch. There's one section behind the house that is really close to trees and stuff so my choices of equipment are very limited.

The equipment rental place made my decision easy because they only had a 6" trencher available, everything else was rented out. 6 inches is smaller than I wanted to go, but beggars can't be choosers, eh?

So I decided to rent the trencher and use a 4" sleeved corrugated pipe for the drain. When I picked up the piece of equipment, the employee showed me how to use it. He also started it to make sure it would run.

After I get home, I started the machine while it was still on the trailer to let it warm up. I then backed the machine off of the trailer and started towards the starting point of the trench. As soon as I engaged the clutch, the engine stopped. Hmmmm....I checked the choke and gas cutoff to make sure they were in the correct position and tried to start it again. The Banditos luck has kicked in once again. This machine used a pull start like is what's on a push mower. This particular day was about 87 degrees with extremely high humidity. I pulled and pulled and pulled til I couldn't pull no more. I thought maybe the needle was stuck in the carburetor so I tapped on the body to possibly free it up...nope, still won't start. I thought that maybe water had gotten into the gas so I drained the carburetor bowl and added fresh gas and fuel stabilizer....nope, still won't start. I thought maybe the spark plug was wet or fouled so I pulled it out and cleaned it...nope, still won't start.

I called the place where I rented it and told them that something was wrong with it and that I couldn't get it to start. Of course they asked me to start checking certain things like the fuel switch and things. I told them what I had already done and that there was no starting this thing and I'm tired of mucking with it.

They ended up bringing me an upgraded model to switch out. This thing was much nicer than the original one. It had tracks instead of wheels like what a bulldozer or tank uses. It aslo had an electric starter and power steering.

The mechanic that brought the upgraded machine started tinkering with the one that wouldn't start. After about ten minutes of messing with it, he found out why it wouldn't start. Any guesses?

So we're in business now and this machine is getting the job done. At about the halfway point, the Banditos luck strikes again...The trencher cut right through my water line, severing the pipe and power wires. So in efforts to stop water from entering my house, I literally cut off my water supply. I felt like crying but chose to laugh instead. Here's the pipe and wiring after it was fixed.

I thought that I had taken all necessary precautions before digging. I had the power company to mark where the buried lines were. I also marked where the phone, cable lines and septic system was at. But the well is on the other side of the house and it just slipped my mind. I didn't even think that the water line would be exactly where I was digging. Why can't I have this kind of luck while playing the lottery or something?

So I just keep on truckin with the digging and I'm almost done.

In all, this trench is about 200 feet long. Right at the end when I'm moving the machine towards the trailer my luck strikes one more time. When I started to push the throttle forward, the throttle lever snapped off leaving it completely unusable LMFAO...Insert psychotic laughter here 😂😂😜😜🤪🤪🤯🤯

This was part 1 of the french drain experience. Stay tuned for much more fun and Bandito luck!

@bluelightbandit
Non Ducor, Duco