Roselea

Category: Rain

  • .. live from the field!

     It was a pleasant day this Sunday .. until a huge dark cloud came slowly over at about 17:30 and dropped about 30mm of rain in an hour!! Wow Wee!!

    But we didn’t have any flooding onto our building area, just surface water in little puddles here and there. The defences we built to hold back the workshop and the Loke runoffs worked very well. The workshop water was collected and poured into our swimming lane, and the Loke ran down and even though it managed to get deep enough to climb over our berm across the driveway, the overflowing water went further down and away from our building site – phew!

    Lake-on-the-loke

    Lake-on-the-loke

    It did collect down at the bottom of the garden around our living quarters and formed a fairly large “lake” but it didn’t quite (phew again!) reach our floor level at the store room and front doors!!

  • Short Heavy Rain Showers!

     This evening, we had a short sharp heavy rain shower lasting only for 15 minutes or so and we had about 20mm of rain land on us!

    Generally, our new improved defences are working much better, but only just!

    The-6inch-deep-lake-at-the-end-of-the-loke

    The-6inch-deep-lake-at-the-end-of-the-loke

    The Loke rushed down and pooled at the bottom and got within an inch of our berm we put across our driveway. The diverter, along the top of the swimming lane, worked well and allowed the water to pour into the swimming lane itself, without spilling out on to our garden.

    Water-pouring-into-the-swimming-lane

    Water-pouring-into-the-swimming-lane

    But we were concerned that just the surface water landing generally across the land and especially round the module we just repaired, which is approximately 10 metres by 10 metres and that is 100 square metres and for every 1 mm of rain, we would have 100 litres of water. Since we had 20mm of the stuff, we got 2000 litres!! Wow! We had to block off a large pond forming far too near the energy module and make sure it didn’t flow down the freshly filled in edges. Phew!

    The-emergency-hole-to-collect-rain

    The-emergency-hole-to-collect-rain

    We cannot wait to have the foundation done and built the concrete perimeter wall to provide the long term barrier against the elements!!

  • Another flood and Energy Module Number 4 Rises!

    We had another very heavy thunderstorm that dropped nearly an inch of rain in a matter of minutes (about 15 minutes in all)!! The protection we have installed to stop the workshop ground water worked just fine and also the barrier on the Loke also worked. But only by diverting the rainwater to the other end of the house and flowing into our smallest Energy Module Number 4 instead. The water went all along the whole length of our swimming lane and poured off and flowed across the plot and found the module. AND also the water off the Loke went along the whole length of the lane, turned the corner and found the gap we left for ourselves to gain access to our house building area and the water flowed into the same module.
    It appears to have lifted the whole module up, even though it was completely full of water, all 2 tons of it!! Wow!
    Shake of Head! Another repair Job to Do!!

    Look at the video of the flood.

  • Morning Rain Splashes down

     This morning saw quite a lot of rain come down and we didn’t fancy working out there in the wet stuff! But it looks like it has cleared up for the afternoon so we will resume work after lunch.

  • Rain Stops Work on Repair of Module Number 3

    It has been raining quite heavily all day so far and it is not nice out there. Our half completed repair work on Module Number 3 is sitting there gaining water in the bottom of the open tank! We have about an inch of water so far and we will have to put on our wellie boots to continue with the work!!

    Module-3-Repairs-Rain-Stops-Work

    Module-3-Repairs-Rain-Stops-Work

    But we can report that the major problem of flooding from the workshop and also off the Loke has seems to be markedly reduced due to our attempts in building barriers etc. Thank Goodness!! Also because we have dug away large trenches of sand and soil from behind the insulation panels, there is plenty of room for the rain water to absorb into the ground before reaching our module – Phew!

  • Flood Prevention Attempt Number 2!

     Today, we attempted to block off the rain water spillage coming from the workshop. See the little movie of the “river” gushing out of their workshop area (river starts at 12:24 and lasts for over half an hour!).

    Washed-out-section-1

    Washed-out-section-1

    Washed-out-section-2

    Washed-out-section-2


    As you can see what damage their water has caused!

    So we decided to mount a barrier of two 8 foot by 4 foot OSB boards, covered on one side with DPM plastic to waterproof it, and bury them both down 5 feet below the fence footings.

    We had to dig out a long narrow trench for the boards to sit in, it took a lot of digging by hand.

    Trench-dug-for-boards-e1466194453203

    Trench-dug-for-boards-e1466194453203

    We then inserted the boards and attached them to each other and the end of the swimming lane.

    Boards-in-place-1

    Boards-in-place-1

    Boards-in-place-2-e1466194032680

    Boards-in-place-2-e1466194032680


    Then we filled up all around both sides of the new barrier to make sure that there is a strong berm of soil to stop the water from flowing up hill and around the side of the new boards. The other end overlaps the end of the swimming lane’s back wall by a foot.

    All-filled-in-and-compacted

    All-filled-in-and-compacted

    We had to dig out quite a lot of soil from the mound nearby the area to fill in around the boards (replacing the soil washed away)

    Area-dug-out-to-fill-trench

    Area-dug-out-to-fill-trench

    Hopefully, that will prevent  the river from forming and etching away our soil again. it might pool up there in and under the workshop’s fence but it will be contained and not flow anywhere.

    One of the problems, is the fact that the workshop building doesn’t do anything with the rain water collected off their roof. It just goes down two gutter pipes and splashes straight out onto the ground!! These downpipes are right next to our fence!!

    Gutters-droping-water-on-the-boundary

    Gutters-droping-water-on-the-boundary

  • Cloud Burst Upon Us!

     We were driven in by a sudden rain shower! it was very heavy and we have already 8mm of rain in just the 20 minutes we had so far as I write this! Phew!

    Let’s hope that we don’t get another flood like Monday!

     

  • Latest News: Number Three Module Has Risen!

     Oh My! The buried energy module, Number 3 – our largest one we have done so far, has risen!!

    The rain we had today, plus the little we had yesterday, making about 25 mm of rain overall, has caused another flood to gush off from the workshop and the Loke from our neighbours, combined with surface water from our own ground, has collected under the Number 3 module and pushed it up 6 inches!! Unfortunately, the module didn’t have any water in it, we were going to do that later and measure how much we needed to fill them up. This meant that we were given an excellent example of buoyancy in action when a pool of water forms under an air tank like a ship and hey presto – we have lift off!!

    The plastic Aquacell crates, wrapped up in its rubber membrane, it what actually moved, leaving behind most of the insulation boards (apart from two sheets along one of the long sides), which means we will have to try and push down the whole unit back into place when the rainwater has drained away. We hope that the weight of the whole unit will be heavy enough to creep back down by itself, but we might dump a few tons of dirt on top to assist. We really wouldn’t want to put water into the tank as it is likely to peel away the rubber membrane off the bottom of the module, stretch or pull the rubber off the edges and leave behind the plastic crates!! The layers of insulated panels underneath will have risen as well but they will press back down again when the weight of the tank above pushes it down. We think (we hope!) that no silt and water borne material has got underneath the module, just water! It hopefully will settle down flat again! Fingers Crossed!

    Module-3-Floating-150mm-on-Rain-Water-6

    Module-3-Floating-150mm-on-Rain-Water-6

    Module-3-Floating-150mm-on-Rain-Water-3

    Module-3-Floating-150mm-on-Rain-Water-3


    None of the other tanks show any signs of rising so we, thank goodness, can say that the ground water is still well below us and will not be a problem in the long term as they will have water in them anyway!

  • Module Number Four Progress Disrupted!

     Rain Stops Play! This afternoon, after lunch, we discovered (by sticking our heads out of the door!!) that it was raining quite hard but it got worse even in those few minutes! We now had over 10 mm of rain in the last hour!

    Water is pouring off into our new hole we dug this morning! It is eating channels into the walls of the hole!

    Module-4-Hole-dug-and-Flooded

    Module-4-Hole-dug-and-Flooded

    Oh well – British Weather – lovely!

  • Minor Flood Number 2 Stops Play!

    Last night, we had well over 40mm (1½ inches) of rain in about 6 hours. There is lots of puddles everywhere!


    But as usual, the workshop caused another flood! Again it etched away the soil and managed to get under the fence and run downhill into our area.

    Module-2-Rain-washes-soil-in-1

    Module-2-Rain-washes-soil-in-1

    May-2016-Heavy-rain-subsistance-1

    May-2016-Heavy-rain-subsistance-1


    We will have to put up an even bigger and deeper barrier to stop their rainwater from getting into our land.

    At least, our new swimming lane done a great job of holding back the water and there is no sign of any problems along its length. Phew!