20 x 12 = 240, 240 x 11.5 = 2,760

What’s “20 x 12 = 240, 240 x 11.5 = 2,760” mean?

20 = Gallons my wet/dry vac holds
12 = Times per hour I emptied it, or EXACTLY every 5 minutes. Believe me, I timed it.
240 = Gallons per hour
11.5 = Hours I spent emptying my wet dry vac
2,760 = Gallons I pumped out of my basement with a vacuum cleaner

From exactly 9pm Sunday night until about 8:30am Monday morning I emptied a 20 gallon wet/dry vacuum 138 times with water pumped out of my basement, my FINISHED basement. The basement that’s my sons playroom, has my pride and joy PC’s and associated paraphernalia, everything I need to operate my Tee Shirt business including press and hundreds of blanks, and not to mention all my Star Wars collectables (yes, I am one of “them”).

Instead of lugging 20 gallons (about 150 pounds) of water up stairs and outside every 5 minutes, I thought I was “clever” and decided to put the vacuum outside and run the hose into the basement. This did in fact keep me from needing to carry that water. But it also required me to STAND OUTSIDE and empty it every 5 minutes. FOR 11.5 HOURS, in the rain.

At about 8:30 am I was able to get my hands on a pump that allowed me to come inside. The pump of course did not have an automatic shutoff, so It still needed to be watched very closely, but at least my wife could do that while I got some sleep.

Anyways, the water continued to creep in up till about 6pm Monday night. It stopped raining until early this morning. I will go home for lunch in a bit and hope that its not all starting again, as it is pouring outside now.

Im tired, cranky, and generally unpleasant right now. But other than that, everything is great! How about you?


[edit on 16-5-2006 by skippytjc]