The basement at Webster has always been the bane of our existence. When we bought the building in fall of 2016, the basement was full of water. We'd tried a number of things over the years to try to get a sense of how much water was there, how big the basement was, etc.y We dropped weights on strings down the stairwell to try and get an idea of the depth, but it kept coming back at 20 feet deep. That couldn't be right, could it?
We looked for architectural drawings, but the school district cleaned house once they sold the buildings. The state archives didn't have anything and all that was in the collection of the architect was a floor plan. It felt like every turn was a dead-end and our board of directors meeting minutes are full of question after question about the basement with a different version of "I don't know" each time.
Finally, we've been able to move forward with our environmental firm, who paved the way for the basement to get pumped out. (I may write out the whole story about how that happened one day, but for now, just know it was a long process).
On April 21st, the basement was empty, sump pumps were installed and we could finally get in the basement to see what the damage was. It was INCREDIBLE.
First, yes, the basement was more than 20 feet deep, closer to 25. Everything down there is covered in a sludge that can only be made up of dust, ground mud, and the broken down particles of whatever else was down there. Muck books were a must.
We also found that each of the long corridors that make up the north-south hallways also had, underneath them, long hallways for access to the building. This is where ducts, heat, cooling, electric and plumbing were all run, but these hallways are ten feet wide by seven feet tall, UNDER THE WHOLE BUILDING. Additionally, there is an out building with an extra boiler that has a tunnel that runs to it as well.
In short, what we found was that almost the entire footprint of the building exists AGAIN underground. And it feels like a whole different world down there. Enjoy some photos from Coleman's phone!
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