Terry's Plumbing to the rescue!
On Sunday the 10th, I noticed some water coming into my basement at an impressive rate. Since we moved in October 2015, this had happened a few times with heavy rain, but nothing to this magnitude - it was literally pushing holes in the hydraulic cement i had patched in a few places.
There was a sudden cold snap on the 10th as well, went from nearly 50 degrees the day before, to about 0 degrees in a day - and that was coupled with about a half inch of rain - so I just immediately thought I needed a drain. On the off chance it was a water line, I called my borough and asked them to come and check to make sure that this wasn't the case.
The borough didn't call me back until Monday morning, after which I spent most of the night trying to abate the leaking to no avail. The water company professional told me that he didn't think that it would be a water line, or backed storm drain, because the water lines were new, and there are no storm drains on our street. He also mentioned that with the recent snowfall, that they would have to wait to check the line until there was a dry day and a decrease in traffic to be able to hear if there was a leak.
So, based on that information, I surrendered to the fact that I would most likely need an internal french drain. I called several places, and even a general contractor, all of whom didn't have immediate response times.
This is important, because of what my wife and I had to do whilst waiting for an eval and price we could afford - this was building a levy in my basement to contain the water, using flow dams to try to direct it to drains, and every towel, blanket and sheet in the house needed to be spun out in the washer, and about 30 gallons of water vacuumed out and dumped every 6 hrs, for 7 days, so it didn't completely destroy my basement. We entertained all offers, none were great, but we were going to have to do something soon.
Then, on Thursday night, I noticed that around my curb box for the water service line had no snow, neither did my hillside, and it was very soggy. So I took pictures, and sent them to the borough manager, asking for someone to come and check the line. Move to Friday Morning, the water authority gentleman who came up three times over the next few days, was such a nice man, and he very nicely told us what the problem was, and what we needed to do to get it fixed. I called in every person I knew, even my uncle who was a retired plumber for suggestions, no one had a good one, so I turned to Angie's List, and good thing I did.
When I called Terry's plumbing, they were delightful, and Terry himself came out and took a look at what needed to be done. He gave me an amazing quote within my budget, and said that they would be back on Monday. Terry was the absolute best, he was respectful, honorable, and stood behind everything he said to me. The crew that Terry sent must be his A-Team because Jason, Jason and Tim were top shelf. They put me at ease about everything, and got everything taken care of and the water back on within just a few hours of being here the first day. They came back day 2 to straighten up the yard, and patch a hole in my basement floor where the new line came in. The whole Job went off without a hitch, other than it being about 6 degrees outside the whole time.
They cleaned up everything very nicely, and gave me all the information I would need to keep myself safe going forward, and even let me know that my water tank is aging and we might want to budget for that next before it goes. Very professional, very good expert work and advice. I will use Terry's Plumbing again, and will recommend them to everyone I know. This was my first big hurdle as a homeowner, and Terry's made it easier for me. Can't thank them enough.