A Pleasant Surprise

Any time you take on a project to do something for the first time there are going to be surprises, most of them unpleasant.  Overall, my drainage project has been no exception, but yesterday was different.

Yesterday I decided that it was time to remove the old sump pump from the hole.

The sump pump is inside a barrel of sorts that is about the size of a big trash can.  I cut away the PVC pipes connected to the top of the barrel, removed the bolts holding the top to the barrel, and removed the top.  I could then reach into the barrel and remove the pump.

The barrel was sitting in about a foot and a half of water in the hole.  I pumped most of the water out of the hole so that I could dig the barrel out.  The bottom of the barrel was about two feet below the bottom of the hole.  I was faced with the prospect of making the hole about two feet deeper around the barrel in order to remove the barrel.

Digging, in general, is not much fun.  Digging mud is immensely worse.  The water soaked muck is heavy and tends splatter over everything.  There was no place to stand except in the hole, on the muddy bottom.  My shoes sank an inch or so into the mud.  After a bit of digging around the barrel, I decided to take a break.

When I returned, barrel had popped up and was resting on its side at the bottom of the hole.

The water pressure in the muck surrounding the barrel was evidently great enough to push the barrel up like a cork. 

 After pumping some water out of the barrel, I could simply reach down and pick it up.