Sunday, August 24, 2014
i'd pick up a variax if it was cheap enough. my pod has the in. but
the way they built it wasn't really offering a whole lot. most
guitarists that would want to switch between the classic models have a
way to get the sound of the classic models already. like, i have an sg
sounding thing and a fat strat sounding thing and that's enough to get
me what i need. i wouldn't mind picking up a single coil guitar, but i
don't have much use for the too-thick paul sound (the sg is the thicker
metal/punk sound i really want, because it's thicker but not too thick).
so, they were really selling a guitar that can sound like a banjo. it's
a shame it all got discontinued, but i have to wonder if there are
people out there creating models and uploading them somewhere....
yesterday wasn't as absolutely productive as i hoped, but i did get a guitar part and a string part down, and i think i've found a way to make the violins sound better. it's the staccato that's hard to get with the right force. i think the problem is that the people writing the plugins are listening to too much rossini and not enough beethoven. so, you can get a nice schmarmy bourgeois sound, but it's harder to get that overly-serious rockin' the bows to a satanic hymn overture sound - which is weird, because that should be much easier to reproduce in a wavetable based synthesis. regardless, i think i got it. if i'm not satisfied, that'll be the focus the rest of the night. i think i've found a great general string solution, i'm just not completely sold yet. but finding one will actually open up a lot of possibilities. in the past, i've used e-bows and i actually picked up a cheap electric violin a while back that i've never played because it needs a setup. doing this over midi is the best answer that's going to give me the flexibility i need and want, it's just a question of getting it done.
i've also got it tactically worked out. this is necessary sometimes when i get too many ideas to try and cram into one space. i've oversaturated some mixes in the past and have learned that it's better to be a bit more subtle in how ideas come in and out. so, if i'm listening to something and i get this it needs a piano! and eight guitars! and a kazoo! type response, i need to be careful about overloading. i think i've got it worked down to focusing mostly on a crescendo...
it's really just scattered parts to finish before i add the bass, which is a more substantial project. it should be mostly done by the morning, but i keep saying that....
i will one day take a few months of violin lessons, just to get the bow fundamentals down. beyond that, it's just another string instrument, and, from a string player's perspective, it's just a question of teaching one's self the geometry of the thing.
i know that pisses some people off. i think it was peter buck that pointed it out. he was all like "listen. a mandolin's not just a funny sounding guitar. it's it's own thing.". i get where he's coming from, but sometimes you just want a funny sounding guitar...
now i'm remembering that my mandolin disappeared. grrr.
what i'd actually like to see thrown out there some day is a midi guitar with the electronics built into the guitar (you could do it with an iphone chip, and things much cheaper than it) that has a switch selector on the side that allows the player to switch instruments: guitar, bass, banjo, mandolin, ukelele, violin, cello, etc. i know there's tuning issues, but that's actually easy to fix with a midi system. you throw in a usb out, and you should be able to actually set the tuning in the software. the strings will sound differently than the out, but that's of little importance if used correctly.
i think line6 has something like that (called "variax") but it's designed to model different guitars, and it's hooked up to the box. having the selector on the guitar itself would make the signal path cleaner.
but i should get back to work.
i've also got it tactically worked out. this is necessary sometimes when i get too many ideas to try and cram into one space. i've oversaturated some mixes in the past and have learned that it's better to be a bit more subtle in how ideas come in and out. so, if i'm listening to something and i get this it needs a piano! and eight guitars! and a kazoo! type response, i need to be careful about overloading. i think i've got it worked down to focusing mostly on a crescendo...
it's really just scattered parts to finish before i add the bass, which is a more substantial project. it should be mostly done by the morning, but i keep saying that....
i will one day take a few months of violin lessons, just to get the bow fundamentals down. beyond that, it's just another string instrument, and, from a string player's perspective, it's just a question of teaching one's self the geometry of the thing.
i know that pisses some people off. i think it was peter buck that pointed it out. he was all like "listen. a mandolin's not just a funny sounding guitar. it's it's own thing.". i get where he's coming from, but sometimes you just want a funny sounding guitar...
now i'm remembering that my mandolin disappeared. grrr.
what i'd actually like to see thrown out there some day is a midi guitar with the electronics built into the guitar (you could do it with an iphone chip, and things much cheaper than it) that has a switch selector on the side that allows the player to switch instruments: guitar, bass, banjo, mandolin, ukelele, violin, cello, etc. i know there's tuning issues, but that's actually easy to fix with a midi system. you throw in a usb out, and you should be able to actually set the tuning in the software. the strings will sound differently than the out, but that's of little importance if used correctly.
i think line6 has something like that (called "variax") but it's designed to model different guitars, and it's hooked up to the box. having the selector on the guitar itself would make the signal path cleaner.
but i should get back to work.
yeah. the pressure knocked the valve off. wrench fixed it. for now, anyways. hey, tearing the pipes up is neither trivial nor cheap. but the idea that it was the pressure got through, at least. this is good.
so, things are back to being idyllic in my little basement hideaway, here...
now that i understand the plumbing a bit better, i'll have to be a bit more aggressive. that (and any pipe damage) could have been prevented by unclogging the clog when i first saw it. but i just didn't understand the system. it was just a basic empirical "if rain, then slow drain. should report issue.". which is what i did and should have done. it was really the "rainwater cannot cause slow drains" response that really cost him his pipes, if there's damage....
there may be an upside to it.
the roaches are in the subfloor somewhere. the only one i've seen since may has been out in the laundry area. it's a good guess that their nest was where the flooding was. if i'm lucky, it drowned the bulk of them and washed away a lot of eggs when it flowed through.
it's ok, i'm used to this.
there was a meme in my group of friends when i was in high school. "fuck. shoulda listened to j.".
as applied seriously:
i failed my french assignment because the teacher said i didn't understand the question. it's actually what j said. fuck. shoulda listened to j.
as applied ironically:
it's raining and i forgot my umbrella. fuck. shoulda listened to j.
(in such ironic usage, j would not have offered an opinion on the umbrella, and would probably not even be present.)
there were other usages. but there's a point. shoulda listened to j!
so, things are back to being idyllic in my little basement hideaway, here...
now that i understand the plumbing a bit better, i'll have to be a bit more aggressive. that (and any pipe damage) could have been prevented by unclogging the clog when i first saw it. but i just didn't understand the system. it was just a basic empirical "if rain, then slow drain. should report issue.". which is what i did and should have done. it was really the "rainwater cannot cause slow drains" response that really cost him his pipes, if there's damage....
there may be an upside to it.
the roaches are in the subfloor somewhere. the only one i've seen since may has been out in the laundry area. it's a good guess that their nest was where the flooding was. if i'm lucky, it drowned the bulk of them and washed away a lot of eggs when it flowed through.
it's ok, i'm used to this.
there was a meme in my group of friends when i was in high school. "fuck. shoulda listened to j.".
as applied seriously:
i failed my french assignment because the teacher said i didn't understand the question. it's actually what j said. fuck. shoulda listened to j.
as applied ironically:
it's raining and i forgot my umbrella. fuck. shoulda listened to j.
(in such ironic usage, j would not have offered an opinion on the umbrella, and would probably not even be present.)
there were other usages. but there's a point. shoulda listened to j!
Saturday, August 23, 2014
releasing inri000 in the alter-reality
time is moving forward in the alternate reality...
at midnight, it will be 17 years and 242 days ago that i finished my first demo recordings, in the basement of an upper middle class suburb of ottawa, canada called "sawmill creek".
my dad had built me a recording studio in the basement, and put a drum kit along with a bass and a 4-track recorder in there. i think he had plans to use it himself, and the idea of building it for me was basically a ploy to get it past the wife. that happened more than once before i turned 20...
...but i also think he was hoping i'd stop sitting in my room by myself with my guitar. i'd been playing for around five years at that point, working on a combination of original songwriting, semi-formal blues training and informally teaching myself how to play the alternative rock of the period. people didn't really interest me. it was a bit of a problem, one that's only gotten worse as i've aged. if he could build a studio with some gears, maybe i'd meet some friends and start a band...
the thing is, that isn't how i interpreted it. my favourite artists at the time were billy corgan and trent reznor, so it just sort of struck me as natural to lay the parts down myself. bass is very intuitive for a guitarist, and keyboards are intuitive for everybody, but a big part of this demo is about me teaching myself how to play drums - and at times it's quite obvious, although i should temper that with an explanation that the drum parts are quite purposefully off-kilter in many places.
what can you say about a 17.5 year old demo written by a 15 year-old? there's a few interesting moments on the disc, which i've pulled out as highlights and uploaded to youtube. the bulk of it, however, is exactly what it is - an exceedingly awkward and mildly ostracized teenager working out various day-to-day issues that only a teenager can really understand, while displaying overwhelming influence from overwhelming influences. hey, at least i wasn't writing "mmmmbop". this isn't as polished as frogstomp, but it's arguably more interesting and certainly more original. if i could go back in time, i'd take the influences off my sleeves just a little.
i've come to understand what i was doing as a part of the then contemporary emo-punk movement, albeit on the fringes of it, as it existed in disconnected basements across north america. i had no understanding of that at the time. i'd guess most people a part of it didn't either. it's been defined in a revisionist manner.
i stopped recording for a little while after this. it's partly because i was naive, and was expecting some kind of response, but it's mostly because i was grounded for a substantial period in early 1997. i've cut out a period of 66 days, and will consequently start pushing tracks from the second tape demo (recorded in the same place) on the 29th of october. over this period, i'll be cycling the 11 tracks from the first demo that i have up on youtube in 6 day periods (with boogeyman consisting of three tracks from this demo, and teenage jesus consisting of two), but i will not be posting those updates here.
so, this is the last youtube switch update for a bit over two months. the song i'm working on has been slow, but i'd be lying if i'd say i wasn't expecting that. in two months, though, i should hopefully have plowed through from the summer of 2001 to sometime in 2003.
http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inri-cassette-demo-1
at midnight, it will be 17 years and 242 days ago that i finished my first demo recordings, in the basement of an upper middle class suburb of ottawa, canada called "sawmill creek".
my dad had built me a recording studio in the basement, and put a drum kit along with a bass and a 4-track recorder in there. i think he had plans to use it himself, and the idea of building it for me was basically a ploy to get it past the wife. that happened more than once before i turned 20...
...but i also think he was hoping i'd stop sitting in my room by myself with my guitar. i'd been playing for around five years at that point, working on a combination of original songwriting, semi-formal blues training and informally teaching myself how to play the alternative rock of the period. people didn't really interest me. it was a bit of a problem, one that's only gotten worse as i've aged. if he could build a studio with some gears, maybe i'd meet some friends and start a band...
the thing is, that isn't how i interpreted it. my favourite artists at the time were billy corgan and trent reznor, so it just sort of struck me as natural to lay the parts down myself. bass is very intuitive for a guitarist, and keyboards are intuitive for everybody, but a big part of this demo is about me teaching myself how to play drums - and at times it's quite obvious, although i should temper that with an explanation that the drum parts are quite purposefully off-kilter in many places.
what can you say about a 17.5 year old demo written by a 15 year-old? there's a few interesting moments on the disc, which i've pulled out as highlights and uploaded to youtube. the bulk of it, however, is exactly what it is - an exceedingly awkward and mildly ostracized teenager working out various day-to-day issues that only a teenager can really understand, while displaying overwhelming influence from overwhelming influences. hey, at least i wasn't writing "mmmmbop". this isn't as polished as frogstomp, but it's arguably more interesting and certainly more original. if i could go back in time, i'd take the influences off my sleeves just a little.
i've come to understand what i was doing as a part of the then contemporary emo-punk movement, albeit on the fringes of it, as it existed in disconnected basements across north america. i had no understanding of that at the time. i'd guess most people a part of it didn't either. it's been defined in a revisionist manner.
i stopped recording for a little while after this. it's partly because i was naive, and was expecting some kind of response, but it's mostly because i was grounded for a substantial period in early 1997. i've cut out a period of 66 days, and will consequently start pushing tracks from the second tape demo (recorded in the same place) on the 29th of october. over this period, i'll be cycling the 11 tracks from the first demo that i have up on youtube in 6 day periods (with boogeyman consisting of three tracks from this demo, and teenage jesus consisting of two), but i will not be posting those updates here.
so, this is the last youtube switch update for a bit over two months. the song i'm working on has been slow, but i'd be lying if i'd say i wasn't expecting that. in two months, though, i should hopefully have plowed through from the summer of 2001 to sometime in 2003.
http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inri-cassette-demo-1
basement toilet fixed, waiting on upstairs toilet
hi.
i learned a lot about plumbing from this exercise. it's not something i'd looked into before...
the eel fixed the drain. but, for future reference, this is what happened:
- your sump pump is connected to outside
- your floor drain is connected to the sanitary.
- there was a partial blockage deep in the sanitary, meaning the floor drain was emptying the basement water very slowly. this caused the sump pump to be running all the time to compensate.
- so, when it rained the basement got full of water and that water blocked the sanitary completely, causing the slow flush, sink gurgles, etc. given enough of a dry spell, it would have come down on it's own through a combination of slow floor drainage and sump pump action, but it's of course better to clear the plug.
so, the systems are not entirely separate. your pump is pumping excess water to the street, but most of the rain water is in fact flowing through the floor drain and into the sanitary, and if you were to block that off your pump probably wouldn't be able to keep up.
so, in the future, if you see a slow toilet after the rain, it means your basement is slowly flooding due to a blocked sanitary.
j
i learned a lot about plumbing from this exercise. it's not something i'd looked into before...
the eel fixed the drain. but, for future reference, this is what happened:
- your sump pump is connected to outside
- your floor drain is connected to the sanitary.
- there was a partial blockage deep in the sanitary, meaning the floor drain was emptying the basement water very slowly. this caused the sump pump to be running all the time to compensate.
- so, when it rained the basement got full of water and that water blocked the sanitary completely, causing the slow flush, sink gurgles, etc. given enough of a dry spell, it would have come down on it's own through a combination of slow floor drainage and sump pump action, but it's of course better to clear the plug.
so, the systems are not entirely separate. your pump is pumping excess water to the street, but most of the rain water is in fact flowing through the floor drain and into the sanitary, and if you were to block that off your pump probably wouldn't be able to keep up.
so, in the future, if you see a slow toilet after the rain, it means your basement is slowly flooding due to a blocked sanitary.
j
RAW SEWAGE LEAK FROM UPSTAIRS
the toilet from upstairs is leaking brown water from the ceiling in two places.
it's hard to think this is unrelated to recent concerns.
...and the sump pump is still running from thursday's mild rains...
(pause)
i noticed it stopped...
did you get my email and turn a pipe off? if not, it must be flush related because it's not constant.
it's hard to think this is unrelated to recent concerns.
...and the sump pump is still running from thursday's mild rains...
(pause)
i noticed it stopped...
did you get my email and turn a pipe off? if not, it must be flush related because it's not constant.
uploading to spin inside dull aberrations to the scratchpad
so, i've updated the temp file with the final guitar proportions.
excluding the bass, i'm really heading into post-production with this. lots of work to do still, but it's mostly flourishes on the existing track. this is the core of the track, the way it was always meant to sound...
i'll get most of this done today. i keep saying that. but, today i really will.
http://googledrive.com/host/0B5JfVE9XTZikMS1zek9ER0xSU1E/scratchpad/
excluding the bass, i'm really heading into post-production with this. lots of work to do still, but it's mostly flourishes on the existing track. this is the core of the track, the way it was always meant to sound...
i'll get most of this done today. i keep saying that. but, today i really will.
http://googledrive.com/host/0B5JfVE9XTZikMS1zek9ER0xSU1E/scratchpad/
fuck. just gotta laugh.
i'm pretty sure the high pressure from the rainwater backup/clog issue burst or dislodged something in the toilet upstairs, leading to a leaky pipe. by the end of it, an upstairs toilet flush was making the dishes in my sink rattle. there was clearly a substantial force of air feeding back...
now, the fact that the snake fixed the problem isn't going to help my case. "i told you there was a clog". and i agreed there was probably a clog, but i pointed out that it wasn't the clog causing the backup, it was the rain. and, i was right. had we not got all that rain, the clog wouldn't have been a problem.....until spring. it's good it was found. but, that doesn't change the fact that i was right about the rain. had he not convinced me that the sump pump is more powerful than it is and that the systems are completely separate, i wouldn't have emailed the fire department in a desperate attempt to figure out where the rain was getting in. it makes absolute sense now, but (dammit jim!) i'm a nerd with a creative streak and an ability to think outside the box (i think i proved my worth on that basis with this), not a plumber. leave it to an artist to come up with the most ridiculous way possible to explain water seepage into the system, right?
that's not going to get through. what's going to get through is "i told you there was a clog".
so, i'm going to be told it's the seal on the toilet and they're going to replace the seal. in the end, replacing the seal might make the connection tight again, and it might fix it. but could it be a coincidence? is the leak unrelated to the backup? i can't prove it one way or the other, but i think it's at least likely that the air pressure broke something and hoping it's just the seal is pretty risky...
"a camouflaged pelican of immense girth must be transporting water from the river to the sewer."
i'm pretty sure the high pressure from the rainwater backup/clog issue burst or dislodged something in the toilet upstairs, leading to a leaky pipe. by the end of it, an upstairs toilet flush was making the dishes in my sink rattle. there was clearly a substantial force of air feeding back...
now, the fact that the snake fixed the problem isn't going to help my case. "i told you there was a clog". and i agreed there was probably a clog, but i pointed out that it wasn't the clog causing the backup, it was the rain. and, i was right. had we not got all that rain, the clog wouldn't have been a problem.....until spring. it's good it was found. but, that doesn't change the fact that i was right about the rain. had he not convinced me that the sump pump is more powerful than it is and that the systems are completely separate, i wouldn't have emailed the fire department in a desperate attempt to figure out where the rain was getting in. it makes absolute sense now, but (dammit jim!) i'm a nerd with a creative streak and an ability to think outside the box (i think i proved my worth on that basis with this), not a plumber. leave it to an artist to come up with the most ridiculous way possible to explain water seepage into the system, right?
that's not going to get through. what's going to get through is "i told you there was a clog".
so, i'm going to be told it's the seal on the toilet and they're going to replace the seal. in the end, replacing the seal might make the connection tight again, and it might fix it. but could it be a coincidence? is the leak unrelated to the backup? i can't prove it one way or the other, but i think it's at least likely that the air pressure broke something and hoping it's just the seal is pretty risky...
"a camouflaged pelican of immense girth must be transporting water from the river to the sewer."
Friday, August 22, 2014
so, i've actually spent most of the last two days doing dental work on my headphones....
some time back in the mid 80s when they were made (by dad bought these phones for himself when i was a young child. they're very old sennheisers, constructed at a level of quality that simply does not exist anymore. made in ireland. yeah, ireland. i think it's the only thing i've ever seen that was made in ireland.), they came with dust protectors on the side. but, over the years the dust protectors have faded to the point that they are now dust themselves. so, i'm trying to clean it all out with a set of tweezers. it's time consuming...
but the good news is that i've finally got the guitars mixed the way i want. i had to split it into three separate combinations over three different types of fuzz and then tweak the eq on each separately. it's a total of 8 different parts, sent and morphed differently. i wanted it to be dirty and crunchy and bassy and trebly and harmonic all at the same time, which is a lot to ask out of a couple of power chords. but....finally...
tonight, i should hopefully get done what i wanted to get done yesterday. i've decided i want a piano-sounding guitar in the middle of the track. i've always wanted one of those little stompboxes. but i'll have to see what i can pull together into terms of plugins...
i also finally found that one stupid hair i knew was in there but couldn't get out...
the sturdy design is a tragic flaw, really. i can swap out the cords, but i can't get to the drivers - which is great, except when you've got a hair in there.
i admit defeat, with tweezers. i need to find a vacuum...
some time back in the mid 80s when they were made (by dad bought these phones for himself when i was a young child. they're very old sennheisers, constructed at a level of quality that simply does not exist anymore. made in ireland. yeah, ireland. i think it's the only thing i've ever seen that was made in ireland.), they came with dust protectors on the side. but, over the years the dust protectors have faded to the point that they are now dust themselves. so, i'm trying to clean it all out with a set of tweezers. it's time consuming...
but the good news is that i've finally got the guitars mixed the way i want. i had to split it into three separate combinations over three different types of fuzz and then tweak the eq on each separately. it's a total of 8 different parts, sent and morphed differently. i wanted it to be dirty and crunchy and bassy and trebly and harmonic all at the same time, which is a lot to ask out of a couple of power chords. but....finally...
tonight, i should hopefully get done what i wanted to get done yesterday. i've decided i want a piano-sounding guitar in the middle of the track. i've always wanted one of those little stompboxes. but i'll have to see what i can pull together into terms of plugins...
i also finally found that one stupid hair i knew was in there but couldn't get out...
the sturdy design is a tragic flaw, really. i can swap out the cords, but i can't get to the drivers - which is great, except when you've got a hair in there.
i admit defeat, with tweezers. i need to find a vacuum...
so, the fire chief tells me there's no sump pump in the building.
to begin with, how would the fire chief know if there's a sump pump in the building? is there a master list of sump pumps in city records?
well, maybe there is. who knows. but, there was a tenant in the basement - the lights were often on late into the night - and there's a spout on the side of the building. clearly, there was a sump pump.
it may have been an illegal sump pump. an illegal sump pump? well, maybe there was an illegal unit in the basement. it's not uncommon, actually. but, like i'm supposed to get sad about accidentally reporting it. i need the drain fixed, bob the bourgie across the street that fucked off on his property rights responsibilities can fuck off if he doesn't like it...
i mean, if you're just going to sit there and let the drain back up into the neighbourhood's toilets, you deserve what you get.
to begin with, how would the fire chief know if there's a sump pump in the building? is there a master list of sump pumps in city records?
well, maybe there is. who knows. but, there was a tenant in the basement - the lights were often on late into the night - and there's a spout on the side of the building. clearly, there was a sump pump.
it may have been an illegal sump pump. an illegal sump pump? well, maybe there was an illegal unit in the basement. it's not uncommon, actually. but, like i'm supposed to get sad about accidentally reporting it. i need the drain fixed, bob the bourgie across the street that fucked off on his property rights responsibilities can fuck off if he doesn't like it...
i mean, if you're just going to sit there and let the drain back up into the neighbourhood's toilets, you deserve what you get.
i just realized the fire chief (yes, i cced it to the fire chief. i'll call the fucking mayor if i have to.) is going to read this and go "what is she, some kind of anarchist or something?".
ordered solutions are preferable. but if nothing happens, i WILL smash through the windows and fix it myself...
cced to pretty much the entire management of the windsor fire department:
hi.
sorry to be aggressive about this, but i know that the response rate on email communication with public employees can be a little slow due to high volume, so i'm hoping you can advise on what is actually a fairly unfortunate situation.
i'm renting an apartment at marion & cataraqui. about a month ago, there was a fire in a large property across the street (also marion & cataraqui, but technically on cataraqui). since then, the rain has been overwhelming the sanitary on the street (several houses are getting slow toilets and backups) and i'm fairly convinced the cause has to be the rainwater draining through the floor drain. the property is abandoned, and the electricity is off, so the sump pump is not working. additionally, this seems to be causing additional stress on neighbouring sump pumps.
it's unfortunate that there was a fire on the street, but there needs to be a drainage solution developed before the spring. this is a large property and it simply can't be left to drain into the sanitary like this.
i've been informed that the fire department probably turned the power off, and i certainly understand the reasons why. but, there needs to be a pump in the property, or the drain needs to be plugged, or something else - otherwise the toilets on the street are going to back up badly in the spring.
so, i really ultimately need to know who deals with this. the city? the fire department? the property owner? neighbours smashing through the windows and doing it themselves?
j
i'll smash the place up with a baseball bat, and then cram the bat right down the floor drain.
yeah? just watch me...
it'll have to overflow through the windows, out to the storm sewer.
ordered solutions are preferable. but if nothing happens, i WILL smash through the windows and fix it myself...
cced to pretty much the entire management of the windsor fire department:
hi.
sorry to be aggressive about this, but i know that the response rate on email communication with public employees can be a little slow due to high volume, so i'm hoping you can advise on what is actually a fairly unfortunate situation.
i'm renting an apartment at marion & cataraqui. about a month ago, there was a fire in a large property across the street (also marion & cataraqui, but technically on cataraqui). since then, the rain has been overwhelming the sanitary on the street (several houses are getting slow toilets and backups) and i'm fairly convinced the cause has to be the rainwater draining through the floor drain. the property is abandoned, and the electricity is off, so the sump pump is not working. additionally, this seems to be causing additional stress on neighbouring sump pumps.
it's unfortunate that there was a fire on the street, but there needs to be a drainage solution developed before the spring. this is a large property and it simply can't be left to drain into the sanitary like this.
i've been informed that the fire department probably turned the power off, and i certainly understand the reasons why. but, there needs to be a pump in the property, or the drain needs to be plugged, or something else - otherwise the toilets on the street are going to back up badly in the spring.
so, i really ultimately need to know who deals with this. the city? the fire department? the property owner? neighbours smashing through the windows and doing it themselves?
j
i'll smash the place up with a baseball bat, and then cram the bat right down the floor drain.
yeah? just watch me...
it'll have to overflow through the windows, out to the storm sewer.
Thursday, August 21, 2014
gah...
so, a few weeks ago, a heavy rainstorm came through here and the toilet started flushing slowly. at the time, i had no idea what that meant - i didn't even know if i was on city or a septic (i'm on city). but, some back and forth with the landlord and a lot of googling have led me to believe that something is broken with the piping.
the upside is i've learned a bit about how this works. it's something i've never had to think about before. but the way it's supposed to work is that the rain water goes into the storm drain and down a separate pipe to the river, where it dumps in untreated. the toilet water goes into a separate sanitary line and out to the treatment plant. so, rainfall should never back up the toilet.
and, yet it was clear from the beginning that rainwater is in fact slowing down the toilet's drainage. it's not quite backing up. yet.
but, of course the response i'm getting is "that's impossible, it's not how the system works".
there's since been two rainfalls that have caused the toilet to slow down at levels that are proportional to the amount of rain that fell. small rainfalls mean small issue. big rainfalls mean big issue. so, we've got correlation and proportionality. the scientific method tells me we have a causal relationship, here. but science has been less powerful than faith. my scientific reasoning was met with an offer to use the landlord's plunger.
but, what the causal relationship i developed demonstrates is that there's either a break in the local line (which would be expensive for the property owner to fix) or a break on the city line. so, i asked the guy next door...
yup. he's getting backups from the rain, too.
now, i need to convince them that they need to get the city in here to fix something before the snow melts in the spring. as the relationship is proportional, things could get messy down here if nothing happens before then.
there's some construction on the main street a few blocks away to replace old sewer lines.
i'm *hoping* that what's going on is that they have the rainwater temporarily routed to the sanitary, and it will be corrected within a few weeks. but, i have no evidence of this.
my other suspicion is connected to the house across the street. there was a fire there about a month ago, which is about when things started backing up. the property's been completely shut down. if they shut the sump pump off, the rainwater could be pooling in the basement and heading down the floor drain - which is usually connected to the sanitary. that would explain it. the problem is that it's hard to understand how that could be generating *enough* water to back shit up without there being significant blockage somewhere. but, then you need to ask the question: what else has been flowing through the floor drain since then?
i've done all i can do, though. i've proven to them that something is crossed, and it's probably a city issue. now i just have to hope they do something about it...
i'm honestly expecting a more positive response from the main property owner than the guy upstairs. i THINK i've got enough evidence to convince him. he mentioned calling the city a few emails ago, so i think he'll get it.
but i can't risk this backing up in the spring and am going to have to call the city myself if i don't get a good response.
i mean, it's crystal clear that rainwater is flooding the sanitary somewhere, even if it's not supposed to.
what was weird about the rain today, though, is that the sump pump didn't come on until like an hour after it stopped raining, indicating it's draining from somewhere - like the house across the street, maybe.
i've convinced myself it's the abandoned property next door.
so, i've sent an email off to the windsor engineering department, asking them about the sewer replacement (is the storm going through the sanitary?) and what the procedure is for dealing with an abandoned property that's not draining properly...
so, a few weeks ago, a heavy rainstorm came through here and the toilet started flushing slowly. at the time, i had no idea what that meant - i didn't even know if i was on city or a septic (i'm on city). but, some back and forth with the landlord and a lot of googling have led me to believe that something is broken with the piping.
the upside is i've learned a bit about how this works. it's something i've never had to think about before. but the way it's supposed to work is that the rain water goes into the storm drain and down a separate pipe to the river, where it dumps in untreated. the toilet water goes into a separate sanitary line and out to the treatment plant. so, rainfall should never back up the toilet.
and, yet it was clear from the beginning that rainwater is in fact slowing down the toilet's drainage. it's not quite backing up. yet.
but, of course the response i'm getting is "that's impossible, it's not how the system works".
there's since been two rainfalls that have caused the toilet to slow down at levels that are proportional to the amount of rain that fell. small rainfalls mean small issue. big rainfalls mean big issue. so, we've got correlation and proportionality. the scientific method tells me we have a causal relationship, here. but science has been less powerful than faith. my scientific reasoning was met with an offer to use the landlord's plunger.
but, what the causal relationship i developed demonstrates is that there's either a break in the local line (which would be expensive for the property owner to fix) or a break on the city line. so, i asked the guy next door...
yup. he's getting backups from the rain, too.
now, i need to convince them that they need to get the city in here to fix something before the snow melts in the spring. as the relationship is proportional, things could get messy down here if nothing happens before then.
there's some construction on the main street a few blocks away to replace old sewer lines.
i'm *hoping* that what's going on is that they have the rainwater temporarily routed to the sanitary, and it will be corrected within a few weeks. but, i have no evidence of this.
my other suspicion is connected to the house across the street. there was a fire there about a month ago, which is about when things started backing up. the property's been completely shut down. if they shut the sump pump off, the rainwater could be pooling in the basement and heading down the floor drain - which is usually connected to the sanitary. that would explain it. the problem is that it's hard to understand how that could be generating *enough* water to back shit up without there being significant blockage somewhere. but, then you need to ask the question: what else has been flowing through the floor drain since then?
i've done all i can do, though. i've proven to them that something is crossed, and it's probably a city issue. now i just have to hope they do something about it...
i'm honestly expecting a more positive response from the main property owner than the guy upstairs. i THINK i've got enough evidence to convince him. he mentioned calling the city a few emails ago, so i think he'll get it.
but i can't risk this backing up in the spring and am going to have to call the city myself if i don't get a good response.
i mean, it's crystal clear that rainwater is flooding the sanitary somewhere, even if it's not supposed to.
what was weird about the rain today, though, is that the sump pump didn't come on until like an hour after it stopped raining, indicating it's draining from somewhere - like the house across the street, maybe.
i've convinced myself it's the abandoned property next door.
so, i've sent an email off to the windsor engineering department, asking them about the sewer replacement (is the storm going through the sanitary?) and what the procedure is for dealing with an abandoned property that's not draining properly...
slow toilet drains from the rain, questions about an unmaintained property
To: engineeringdept@city.windsor.on.ca
jessica
hi....
i'm hoping this is a good email address, but maybe you could forward this somewhere more appropriate if it isn't?
i'm renting a basement apartment at cataraqui and marion and am getting a few problems and am just trying to determine the cause. my landlord claims there are separate storm and sanitary lines, and i have no reason to doubt him. his logic is that rainfall should not cause the toilet to drain slowly, and he's consequently not taking me seriously. i understand his argument and why it shouldn't happen.
however, i'm a scientifically minded person and i've been able to demonstrate the following:
1) the slow down is correlated with the rain. that is, the toilet drains slowly after a rain and drains normally once the rain has dried up. so, while a block might exist, it's not the primary cause of the slow down.
2) the amount of slow down is proportional to the amount of rain. that is, when it rains a little, it slows down a little. when it rains a lot, it slows down a lot.
despite understanding that these systems ought to be separated, my brief and aborted training as a physicist tells me that when you have things that are correlated in a proportional manner, it is very likely that there is a causal relationship between them. that is, i have a high degree of certainty that the rain is causing the toilet to drain slowly in a manner that is proportional to how much rain is falling.
while it's august right now, the proportionality has me concerned about spring runoff, which is of course substantial in canada. i have every reason to think that that a lot of snow melting could back up the toilet and cause a horrible mess.
now, i've talked to the neighbour next door and he's confirmed that he's actual dealing with back ups through the pipes, which is a worse problem than i have. he's convinced that the problem is related to sewer replacement on wyandotte down the road. this only makes sense to me if they might have put the storm through the sanitary as a temporary measure. is that something the construction team has done in the short run?
i'm leaning towards a different cause. at roughly the same time that the problem started, the house across the street experienced a significant fire. the property has been completely shut down. i suspect the sump pump is not running, the basement is flooding and it's draining into the floor, which is connected to the sanitary and this is causing the backup. the issue i'm running into in having this make sense is related to the volume of water running through the floor drain. it's a pretty big property - it was an apartment before the fire, but it would have been a five or six bedroom house some time in the middle of the last century, and it has a very big backyard. so, there's a potential for a large volume of water to be coming into the floor drain. how likely do you think it is that this could be the root of the problem? how big a problem do you think this is going to cause in the spring, if it's not addressed now? and what is the better solution for this - running a sump pump on an abandoned property, or closing the drains off? how does the city deal with something like this, if it's determined to be the cause?
city of windsor, engineering department
I would like to clear up a few points in your email.
While your landlord may be correct in that the house may be serviced by separate storm and sanitary connections (I can't confirm that), both these connections would outlet to the same combined sewer in the road. There is only one sewer Cataraqui and one on Marion, and they are both combined sewers meaning that they accept both rain water and sewage.
With respect to the Wyandotte project, there is no sewer work being undertaken as part of that project. Windsor Utilities is replacing the watermain and services and the City will reconstruct the pavement following that work. This project would have no impact on the sewers servicing your property.
You are most likely correct in that there is a correlation between rainfall and the slow running plumbing in your house. This is due to the combined nature of the sewer that services your property. During rain events, combined sewers fill with rainwater and therefore have limited capacity to accept flows from buildings.
With respect to the apartment building across the street from you, all rainfall runoff from this property would have entered the sewer system via foundation drains prior to the fire, so the fact that the basement may have flooded and the water is now entering the floor drain would change the drainage pattern very little. In fact, rainwater entering the sewers from this property would be very small in proportion to that coming from the catchbasins draining the roads in the area.
With respect to abandonment of the connections servicing the apartment building, that would be addressed when the building is demolished by the Building Department. If you have concerns regarding the state of
the building, please contact the Building Department via 311.
Hopefully, this answers some of your questions. Please contact me if you want to discuss this matter further.
Sincerely;
----------------, P.Eng.
A/Contracts Co-ordinator
jessica
hi....
i'm hoping this is a good email address, but maybe you could forward this somewhere more appropriate if it isn't?
i'm renting a basement apartment at cataraqui and marion and am getting a few problems and am just trying to determine the cause. my landlord claims there are separate storm and sanitary lines, and i have no reason to doubt him. his logic is that rainfall should not cause the toilet to drain slowly, and he's consequently not taking me seriously. i understand his argument and why it shouldn't happen.
however, i'm a scientifically minded person and i've been able to demonstrate the following:
1) the slow down is correlated with the rain. that is, the toilet drains slowly after a rain and drains normally once the rain has dried up. so, while a block might exist, it's not the primary cause of the slow down.
2) the amount of slow down is proportional to the amount of rain. that is, when it rains a little, it slows down a little. when it rains a lot, it slows down a lot.
despite understanding that these systems ought to be separated, my brief and aborted training as a physicist tells me that when you have things that are correlated in a proportional manner, it is very likely that there is a causal relationship between them. that is, i have a high degree of certainty that the rain is causing the toilet to drain slowly in a manner that is proportional to how much rain is falling.
while it's august right now, the proportionality has me concerned about spring runoff, which is of course substantial in canada. i have every reason to think that that a lot of snow melting could back up the toilet and cause a horrible mess.
now, i've talked to the neighbour next door and he's confirmed that he's actual dealing with back ups through the pipes, which is a worse problem than i have. he's convinced that the problem is related to sewer replacement on wyandotte down the road. this only makes sense to me if they might have put the storm through the sanitary as a temporary measure. is that something the construction team has done in the short run?
i'm leaning towards a different cause. at roughly the same time that the problem started, the house across the street experienced a significant fire. the property has been completely shut down. i suspect the sump pump is not running, the basement is flooding and it's draining into the floor, which is connected to the sanitary and this is causing the backup. the issue i'm running into in having this make sense is related to the volume of water running through the floor drain. it's a pretty big property - it was an apartment before the fire, but it would have been a five or six bedroom house some time in the middle of the last century, and it has a very big backyard. so, there's a potential for a large volume of water to be coming into the floor drain. how likely do you think it is that this could be the root of the problem? how big a problem do you think this is going to cause in the spring, if it's not addressed now? and what is the better solution for this - running a sump pump on an abandoned property, or closing the drains off? how does the city deal with something like this, if it's determined to be the cause?
city of windsor, engineering department
I would like to clear up a few points in your email.
While your landlord may be correct in that the house may be serviced by separate storm and sanitary connections (I can't confirm that), both these connections would outlet to the same combined sewer in the road. There is only one sewer Cataraqui and one on Marion, and they are both combined sewers meaning that they accept both rain water and sewage.
With respect to the Wyandotte project, there is no sewer work being undertaken as part of that project. Windsor Utilities is replacing the watermain and services and the City will reconstruct the pavement following that work. This project would have no impact on the sewers servicing your property.
You are most likely correct in that there is a correlation between rainfall and the slow running plumbing in your house. This is due to the combined nature of the sewer that services your property. During rain events, combined sewers fill with rainwater and therefore have limited capacity to accept flows from buildings.
With respect to the apartment building across the street from you, all rainfall runoff from this property would have entered the sewer system via foundation drains prior to the fire, so the fact that the basement may have flooded and the water is now entering the floor drain would change the drainage pattern very little. In fact, rainwater entering the sewers from this property would be very small in proportion to that coming from the catchbasins draining the roads in the area.
With respect to abandonment of the connections servicing the apartment building, that would be addressed when the building is demolished by the Building Department. If you have concerns regarding the state of
the building, please contact the Building Department via 311.
Hopefully, this answers some of your questions. Please contact me if you want to discuss this matter further.
Sincerely;
----------------, P.Eng.
A/Contracts Co-ordinator
further update...
jessica
we got very little rain today, and the effect was consequently much less, but still noticeable. what that demonstrates is two-fold:
1) that the slow down is proportional to the amount of rain. we now have correlation and proportionality, demonstrating causality.
2) if a very small amount has a noticeable effect, a very large amount would have a very large effect.
i don't think it's likely we're ever going to get enough rain for a big problem, and i can deal with a slow toilet, but i'm worried about run-off in the spring. the proportionality that is now demonstrated indicates that the run-off could be a gigantic problem.
none of this was happening before, so something has changed in the last month, something that needs to be determined is if other people in the neighbourhood are having the same problem or not. a back-up like this should only affect the lowest lying fixtures, so i need to find somebody else with fixtures in the basement to ask. i've identified the basement tenant next door, i'm now waiting for him to come outside for a smoke to ask him. if he's dealing with the same thing, well know it's a city problem. if he's not, i'm not sure what to say other than that something is probably busted...
(pause)
alright...
so, i talked to the tenant next door and he IS getting back-ups from the rain, meaning it's a city thing. he thinks the pipes in the area are bad and it's the construction.
at this point, i've reached what i can do: i've identified there's a problem with the city piping and reported it to the property owner.
it's now in your hands as to what to do...
(pause)
i've thought about this a bit and i think it's worth being careful about. apparently, the neighbour next door is actually getting backups, not just slow drains. i may have a block of some sort, but i'd hazard a guess that most plumbing is at least mildly blocked. what if the reason i'm NOT backing up is because there IS a block?
i think there's enough evidence at this point to conclude that rainwater is somehow getting into the city's sanitary. i think it's better to focus on that.
the landlord
THE City WILL BE HERE MONDAY DURING THE DAY TO RUN THE EEL THROUGH THE LINE:
jessica
ok.
i still don't feel that i'm getting across what the problem is.
the problem is not that the line is blocked all the time. it is not. the problem is that the line is ONLY blocked when it RAINS.
in general, i'm an advocate of ruling out possibilities. the only way to find out is to try. but i've developed what is a pretty strong causal relationship between the drain and the rain. it seems to be that it will continue to drain slowly until the sump pump turns off, then get back to normal. the sump pump continues to run 12 hours after a mild rain storm, and i need to reiterate that this seems unusual. but considering the separation, i think what the connection between your sump pump and the toilet down here is is that the water drainage in the basement across the street is going to level at about the same time the sump pump stops. that is, i think that the reason they seem connected is because the floor drain across the street should stop draining at roughly the same time that the sump pump down here stops.
i'd just request that the three of us spend a few minutes over the weekend brainstorming other ways that the rainwater might be overwhelming the sanitary on the street.
that abandoned house is the only thing i can think of that really makes sense...and it would probably be better if one of you can get a hold of him to turn the pump back on and/or plug the drain somehow, if you know him, because if i do it it's going to be through city bylaw.
we got very little rain today, and the effect was consequently much less, but still noticeable. what that demonstrates is two-fold:
1) that the slow down is proportional to the amount of rain. we now have correlation and proportionality, demonstrating causality.
2) if a very small amount has a noticeable effect, a very large amount would have a very large effect.
i don't think it's likely we're ever going to get enough rain for a big problem, and i can deal with a slow toilet, but i'm worried about run-off in the spring. the proportionality that is now demonstrated indicates that the run-off could be a gigantic problem.
none of this was happening before, so something has changed in the last month, something that needs to be determined is if other people in the neighbourhood are having the same problem or not. a back-up like this should only affect the lowest lying fixtures, so i need to find somebody else with fixtures in the basement to ask. i've identified the basement tenant next door, i'm now waiting for him to come outside for a smoke to ask him. if he's dealing with the same thing, well know it's a city problem. if he's not, i'm not sure what to say other than that something is probably busted...
(pause)
alright...
so, i talked to the tenant next door and he IS getting back-ups from the rain, meaning it's a city thing. he thinks the pipes in the area are bad and it's the construction.
at this point, i've reached what i can do: i've identified there's a problem with the city piping and reported it to the property owner.
it's now in your hands as to what to do...
(pause)
i've thought about this a bit and i think it's worth being careful about. apparently, the neighbour next door is actually getting backups, not just slow drains. i may have a block of some sort, but i'd hazard a guess that most plumbing is at least mildly blocked. what if the reason i'm NOT backing up is because there IS a block?
i think there's enough evidence at this point to conclude that rainwater is somehow getting into the city's sanitary. i think it's better to focus on that.
the landlord
THE City WILL BE HERE MONDAY DURING THE DAY TO RUN THE EEL THROUGH THE LINE:
jessica
ok.
i still don't feel that i'm getting across what the problem is.
the problem is not that the line is blocked all the time. it is not. the problem is that the line is ONLY blocked when it RAINS.
in general, i'm an advocate of ruling out possibilities. the only way to find out is to try. but i've developed what is a pretty strong causal relationship between the drain and the rain. it seems to be that it will continue to drain slowly until the sump pump turns off, then get back to normal. the sump pump continues to run 12 hours after a mild rain storm, and i need to reiterate that this seems unusual. but considering the separation, i think what the connection between your sump pump and the toilet down here is is that the water drainage in the basement across the street is going to level at about the same time the sump pump stops. that is, i think that the reason they seem connected is because the floor drain across the street should stop draining at roughly the same time that the sump pump down here stops.
i'd just request that the three of us spend a few minutes over the weekend brainstorming other ways that the rainwater might be overwhelming the sanitary on the street.
that abandoned house is the only thing i can think of that really makes sense...and it would probably be better if one of you can get a hold of him to turn the pump back on and/or plug the drain somehow, if you know him, because if i do it it's going to be through city bylaw.
ok, all that messing around is done, now - i have an answer as to how to get the sound out of cubase and into a wave file in the way i want it, and the mix is actually even almost done. so, i'm back to it tonight (and am going to need a lot of coffee to avoid passing out, because i'm at a low in the manic cycle). there'll be minor fixes, dubs and tweaks over night; hopefully, i can do the choir part tomorrow morning, and then all that will be left for the weekend is the bass and post-production. i want this done soon...
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
you're always learning things when you're recording on your own like this. i'm a guitarist, really. but i need to play the role of arranger, engineer, mixer, producer....a lot of it reduces to figuring stuff out on the fly....but once you learn it, you can keep going.
i've been having weird issues with this mix, so i've sat down over the last two days and done a very careful a/b test on the real-time v regular rendering out of cubase. this is an old version of cubase, fwiw - sx3.
my analytical understanding of the situation is that there's going to be a few trade-offs. intuitively, the regular render ought to be the superior render, because it makes the calculation more specific. however, i've studied a little bit of floating point arithmetic and i know the error can become quite substantial when you're dealing with big numbers. so, i had some concern that it may end up overloading the plugins with too much information, just producing more error. this is maybe a little counter-intuitive - you'd think the more specific you are, the better it would be, but when you get to the nitty gritty of the way matrix arithmetic works in a computer it actually works the other way around - the more specific you are, the greater the error. there's no philosophical conclusions to draw from this, it's a user error. but i'm the user, here, and need to try and understand whether i'm making that error or not. based on what i'd learned about modifying the latency, it seemed to me that the plugins i'm using are optimized in real time playback, but i wanted to be sure of it.
starting with the a/b, i could definitely tell a difference in the reverb in one of the first sections, but i intuitively realized it was probably mostly randomness in the plugin. i kept going with it and couldn't tell a difference anywhere else in the song, except that the distortion sounded a little less defined in the regular render. but, it was extremely subtle. this confused me a little.
i ended up doing a null test and it came back flat - except that reverb (and the flange over the reverb, especially). i was using that plugin elsewhere and it nulled. why didn't it null there?
a little research proved my intuition correct - most modulation and time-based effects are engineered to be random, so that each render is a little different. that means i'm going to get neurotic in mixing this thing down, surely.
i then amplified what looked like a flat signal up 48 db (which is a lot) and it came back with a lot of fuzz and a very defined difference in the fuzz on the cello. the conclusion is that the distortion is definitely rendering differently, and i was able to hear it on the a/b. but it's extremely minimal, and not likely to be noticed by anybody but the composer.
regardless, i've got enough evidence in front of me to stick with the real-time. the real-time is supposed to sound the way you're mixing it, and i think it's pretty accurate (now that it's at the right latency). asking the plugin to render offline seems to be asking it to be more specific than it was engineered to be, thereby producing error in the wavetable calculation. it's minimal, but it should be avoided on principle.
i've been having weird issues with this mix, so i've sat down over the last two days and done a very careful a/b test on the real-time v regular rendering out of cubase. this is an old version of cubase, fwiw - sx3.
my analytical understanding of the situation is that there's going to be a few trade-offs. intuitively, the regular render ought to be the superior render, because it makes the calculation more specific. however, i've studied a little bit of floating point arithmetic and i know the error can become quite substantial when you're dealing with big numbers. so, i had some concern that it may end up overloading the plugins with too much information, just producing more error. this is maybe a little counter-intuitive - you'd think the more specific you are, the better it would be, but when you get to the nitty gritty of the way matrix arithmetic works in a computer it actually works the other way around - the more specific you are, the greater the error. there's no philosophical conclusions to draw from this, it's a user error. but i'm the user, here, and need to try and understand whether i'm making that error or not. based on what i'd learned about modifying the latency, it seemed to me that the plugins i'm using are optimized in real time playback, but i wanted to be sure of it.
starting with the a/b, i could definitely tell a difference in the reverb in one of the first sections, but i intuitively realized it was probably mostly randomness in the plugin. i kept going with it and couldn't tell a difference anywhere else in the song, except that the distortion sounded a little less defined in the regular render. but, it was extremely subtle. this confused me a little.
i ended up doing a null test and it came back flat - except that reverb (and the flange over the reverb, especially). i was using that plugin elsewhere and it nulled. why didn't it null there?
a little research proved my intuition correct - most modulation and time-based effects are engineered to be random, so that each render is a little different. that means i'm going to get neurotic in mixing this thing down, surely.
i then amplified what looked like a flat signal up 48 db (which is a lot) and it came back with a lot of fuzz and a very defined difference in the fuzz on the cello. the conclusion is that the distortion is definitely rendering differently, and i was able to hear it on the a/b. but it's extremely minimal, and not likely to be noticed by anybody but the composer.
regardless, i've got enough evidence in front of me to stick with the real-time. the real-time is supposed to sound the way you're mixing it, and i think it's pretty accurate (now that it's at the right latency). asking the plugin to render offline seems to be asking it to be more specific than it was engineered to be, thereby producing error in the wavetable calculation. it's minimal, but it should be avoided on principle.
this weird fear of swallowing is back.
it has to be psychological as opposed to something like, say, ms, which i've seen various symptoms of come and go since i was a little kid. if i get a jug of juice, it goes right down. if i try and take a swig of coffee, i start blowing into the cup. so, i have to take a small sip, swallow, wait and repeat.
i'm pretty sure i'm afraid of choking myself. it goes away after a while....
it has to be psychological as opposed to something like, say, ms, which i've seen various symptoms of come and go since i was a little kid. if i get a jug of juice, it goes right down. if i try and take a swig of coffee, i start blowing into the cup. so, i have to take a small sip, swallow, wait and repeat.
i'm pretty sure i'm afraid of choking myself. it goes away after a while....
Tuesday, August 19, 2014
update...
jessica
hi again.
the toilet did the same thing after the storm today, so it's really obvious, now.
further, i checked the back room and it seems to be flooding out of the storage area beside the laundry room, which my ears tell me is where the sump pump is.
i noticed when i went out for a smoke that it was dumping water on the front lawn at a startling rate. like, it looks like somebody left a faucet running, sort of thing.
again: i have no idea what this means, only that something is flooding and it seems to be connected to the sump pump.
(pause)
actually, the water in the basement seemed to be coming from a little hole in the foundation. but if i were to guess, i'd think the cause of it seeping through would be the massive amount of water coming out of the sump pump directly above it. i might be concerned that it's producing some water damage, but it's sort of secondary to the plumbing issue itself.
it's hard to believe it 's coming from the rain because the puddles on the rest of the street have already dried up. why is this unit getting a thousand times more water than the one next door? so, it has to be feeding back from somewhere.
i just want to be clear about the flow rate. you know the "outdoor taps" that units used to have? i haven't seen once since i was a kid, but you'd attach a hose or a sprinkler to it out of your backyard. it looks like that faucet is on FULL BLAST. and it's been running like that for an hour. there's absolutely no way it's just the rain, it didn't even rain that much, that water has a different source...
with that much water, i thought maybe it was coming from a pipe that could be turned off, but it was suggested to me that that doesn't make sense. see, maybe it doesn't. but the toilet thing doesn't seem to make sense either.
i don't know what the options on the sanitary line are, or how they could get mixed up with the storm drain, but something seems to be crossed.
so i need to ask: did the furnace guys connect any pipes together? might it have crossed something up, through back pressure?
(pause)
sorry for the long email, but, just to finish the thought, it seems like the water was coming out of the sump pump and back into the basement. so it was recycling itself, creating the impression that it was coming out at a steady flow. he put a device in that acts as an inclined plane, to get the water out from the house and each pump is consequently decreasing in volume. so, it seems like it's not backed up, after all, it's just that the ground is really saturated. it might be a good idea to try and make that permanent to prevent further water damage...
it doesn't explain the toilets, but i do think the logic extrapolates. if the water is too saturated in the front of the house, it stands to reason that the city system is possibly backed up.
i'm still a little skeptical about possible flow issues somewhere, but that's an easy line of thinking to stick with for now.
(or it could have been a coincidence that the pump started slowing when the device was installed)
the landlord
Again the pump, pumps storm water, it does not pump sewage. If the sewer, sewage line is backing up we will call the city and report this. Speak to Paul and explain what you are experiencing so that he can look for himself when it rains again. This will give him first hand knowledge of the problem when he speaks to the City. I will speak to Paul and have him call this to the Public works. This is not are doing this will be a city correction. If you notice around our building that they have had us divert the water from the eves draughs out of the storm pipes at the side of the building. This is so the storms are not overloading, delaying the run off into the storm sewers from the road surfaces. Paul you are seeing this e-mail, call me when you get this.
jessica
i guess that explains where the extra water is coming from. ok. i just couldn't understand why there was so much on this property, and so little elsewhere without the water backing up from somewhere. i was thinking that if a stormwater pipe had broken, it could be flooding both the sump pit and the sanitary at the same time. but if you're doing it on purpose, that explains that.
i did a bunch of googling and i'm still working with a weak understanding of toilet plumbing but i think it has to be the case that water is pooling somewhere. it might be a blockage, but if it's a blockage it would have to be somewhere that water can pool where it rains - through a manhole or something. this is then killing the air pressure on the flush. otherwise, it would be slow to drain all the time.
the other thing i was thinking was about the air vent coming up from the toilet. if something had been rerouted with the furnace, could it not possibly have a different reaction to rainwater, and conceivably produce a lack of flush pressure? but, i did an experiment early in the morning and i think i've ruled it out. what i did was let the water in the sink run and then flush. the water was flowing right out through the sink before i flushed, but as it was flushing it started to fill up a little. if i understand correctly, this rules out a vent issue by demonstrating a restriction of the flow rate.
i have to admit that i'm not entirely convinced it isn't construction. if they're temporarily down to one pipe somewhere instead of two, that could be where the water is pooling. i know everybody else in the neighbourhood would have to experience this, but how many have toilets that are low enough for it to be an issue?
i'll bring paul down here next time we get a lot of rain...
(pause)
the only other thing i can think of is that maybe one of the neighbours recently installed a sump pump to the sanitary and it's exaggerating an existing block...you're not supposed to that, but people do that...
whether it's via leak, construction, bad install or whatever else i think the flow restriction happening only when it rains, and stopping when it's dried out, demonstrates that there just has to be rainwater blocking the sanitary at some point, somewhere, somehow - even though that's not supposed to happen.
but, like i say, i'll get paul down here to see it next time it happens.
(pause)
actually, there's one more hypothesis i have. i know this is a little bit of a long shot, but the culmination of what you're telling me and what i'm reading and what i'm seeing indicates that something very strange is happening.
the house across the street had a fire last month. it seems like it's been completely shut down since. if they shut the sump pump off, the basement could be flooding in the rain, and the flooding could be finding it's way into the sanitary, slowing the drain down.
it's just a guess, but something weird like that MUST be happening. i don't known if you know those guys or could call them and ask, but i think the sump pump in that basement ought to be working, regardless, for the benefit of the rest of the neighbourhood....
hi again.
the toilet did the same thing after the storm today, so it's really obvious, now.
further, i checked the back room and it seems to be flooding out of the storage area beside the laundry room, which my ears tell me is where the sump pump is.
i noticed when i went out for a smoke that it was dumping water on the front lawn at a startling rate. like, it looks like somebody left a faucet running, sort of thing.
again: i have no idea what this means, only that something is flooding and it seems to be connected to the sump pump.
(pause)
actually, the water in the basement seemed to be coming from a little hole in the foundation. but if i were to guess, i'd think the cause of it seeping through would be the massive amount of water coming out of the sump pump directly above it. i might be concerned that it's producing some water damage, but it's sort of secondary to the plumbing issue itself.
it's hard to believe it 's coming from the rain because the puddles on the rest of the street have already dried up. why is this unit getting a thousand times more water than the one next door? so, it has to be feeding back from somewhere.
i just want to be clear about the flow rate. you know the "outdoor taps" that units used to have? i haven't seen once since i was a kid, but you'd attach a hose or a sprinkler to it out of your backyard. it looks like that faucet is on FULL BLAST. and it's been running like that for an hour. there's absolutely no way it's just the rain, it didn't even rain that much, that water has a different source...
with that much water, i thought maybe it was coming from a pipe that could be turned off, but it was suggested to me that that doesn't make sense. see, maybe it doesn't. but the toilet thing doesn't seem to make sense either.
i don't know what the options on the sanitary line are, or how they could get mixed up with the storm drain, but something seems to be crossed.
so i need to ask: did the furnace guys connect any pipes together? might it have crossed something up, through back pressure?
(pause)
sorry for the long email, but, just to finish the thought, it seems like the water was coming out of the sump pump and back into the basement. so it was recycling itself, creating the impression that it was coming out at a steady flow. he put a device in that acts as an inclined plane, to get the water out from the house and each pump is consequently decreasing in volume. so, it seems like it's not backed up, after all, it's just that the ground is really saturated. it might be a good idea to try and make that permanent to prevent further water damage...
it doesn't explain the toilets, but i do think the logic extrapolates. if the water is too saturated in the front of the house, it stands to reason that the city system is possibly backed up.
i'm still a little skeptical about possible flow issues somewhere, but that's an easy line of thinking to stick with for now.
(or it could have been a coincidence that the pump started slowing when the device was installed)
the landlord
Again the pump, pumps storm water, it does not pump sewage. If the sewer, sewage line is backing up we will call the city and report this. Speak to Paul and explain what you are experiencing so that he can look for himself when it rains again. This will give him first hand knowledge of the problem when he speaks to the City. I will speak to Paul and have him call this to the Public works. This is not are doing this will be a city correction. If you notice around our building that they have had us divert the water from the eves draughs out of the storm pipes at the side of the building. This is so the storms are not overloading, delaying the run off into the storm sewers from the road surfaces. Paul you are seeing this e-mail, call me when you get this.
jessica
i guess that explains where the extra water is coming from. ok. i just couldn't understand why there was so much on this property, and so little elsewhere without the water backing up from somewhere. i was thinking that if a stormwater pipe had broken, it could be flooding both the sump pit and the sanitary at the same time. but if you're doing it on purpose, that explains that.
i did a bunch of googling and i'm still working with a weak understanding of toilet plumbing but i think it has to be the case that water is pooling somewhere. it might be a blockage, but if it's a blockage it would have to be somewhere that water can pool where it rains - through a manhole or something. this is then killing the air pressure on the flush. otherwise, it would be slow to drain all the time.
the other thing i was thinking was about the air vent coming up from the toilet. if something had been rerouted with the furnace, could it not possibly have a different reaction to rainwater, and conceivably produce a lack of flush pressure? but, i did an experiment early in the morning and i think i've ruled it out. what i did was let the water in the sink run and then flush. the water was flowing right out through the sink before i flushed, but as it was flushing it started to fill up a little. if i understand correctly, this rules out a vent issue by demonstrating a restriction of the flow rate.
i have to admit that i'm not entirely convinced it isn't construction. if they're temporarily down to one pipe somewhere instead of two, that could be where the water is pooling. i know everybody else in the neighbourhood would have to experience this, but how many have toilets that are low enough for it to be an issue?
i'll bring paul down here next time we get a lot of rain...
(pause)
the only other thing i can think of is that maybe one of the neighbours recently installed a sump pump to the sanitary and it's exaggerating an existing block...you're not supposed to that, but people do that...
whether it's via leak, construction, bad install or whatever else i think the flow restriction happening only when it rains, and stopping when it's dried out, demonstrates that there just has to be rainwater blocking the sanitary at some point, somewhere, somehow - even though that's not supposed to happen.
but, like i say, i'll get paul down here to see it next time it happens.
(pause)
actually, there's one more hypothesis i have. i know this is a little bit of a long shot, but the culmination of what you're telling me and what i'm reading and what i'm seeing indicates that something very strange is happening.
the house across the street had a fire last month. it seems like it's been completely shut down since. if they shut the sump pump off, the basement could be flooding in the rain, and the flooding could be finding it's way into the sanitary, slowing the drain down.
it's just a guess, but something weird like that MUST be happening. i don't known if you know those guys or could call them and ask, but i think the sump pump in that basement ought to be working, regardless, for the benefit of the rest of the neighbourhood....
another thing to take note of...
every video in the first grid, sorted by popularity, now has over 100 views.
it might seem silly to note this on first thought, but it has psychological implications for some people that won't watch something unless it has x amount of hits. now, they don't have to see any videos with two digit view counts. these kinds of people maybe aren't a natural demographic for me, but it's an additive thing...
i uploaded like 70 videos over about three months, which wasn't done with much thought about view count. but what it means is that a lot of the songs are climbing at roughly the same rate, and the rate is relatively slow compared to the overall channel rate. i mean, instead of having those 10,000 hits focused on one or two tracks, they're spread over 70. so, i wouldn't expect that number to hit 200 for at least two more months, and 300 until the end of the year. having that number go from 100 to 300 is 6000 total views, though.
i'm focusing on long term distribution potential, not short term virality, so it's a better argument for me to spread it out. but it takes time...
every video in the first grid, sorted by popularity, now has over 100 views.
it might seem silly to note this on first thought, but it has psychological implications for some people that won't watch something unless it has x amount of hits. now, they don't have to see any videos with two digit view counts. these kinds of people maybe aren't a natural demographic for me, but it's an additive thing...
i uploaded like 70 videos over about three months, which wasn't done with much thought about view count. but what it means is that a lot of the songs are climbing at roughly the same rate, and the rate is relatively slow compared to the overall channel rate. i mean, instead of having those 10,000 hits focused on one or two tracks, they're spread over 70. so, i wouldn't expect that number to hit 200 for at least two more months, and 300 until the end of the year. having that number go from 100 to 300 is 6000 total views, though.
i'm focusing on long term distribution potential, not short term virality, so it's a better argument for me to spread it out. but it takes time...
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