Calgary's rainy summer has calls flooding in for some businesses

The wet weather that's been putting a damper on summer for most Calgarians has had a silver lining for others.

Chad Lacey says his foundation repair company got more than 100 service calls one day last week almost as many as he got for all of July last year.

• Calgary's July wettest on record in nearly 90 years

"And a lot are the window filled up so fast and the water came in, or the pump failed... and especially through the night through our 24-hour service side," he said.

Lacey says he's had to bring in staff from other cities to keep up with demand.

The rain not only leads to leaky basementsbut major structural problems too, Lacey says.

"There are houses that will start to bow in, so the walls will actually start to bend and bow in and houses will sink and crack ... so we have two full-time departments going here," he said.

Record set in 1927

Calgary got 206.1mm of rain in July. The average accumulation for the month is 66 mm.

July 1927 still holds the record for the city's wettest Julyat 246 mm of rain.

The weather has keptAlberta Sandbags Inc. busy.

"Atotal influx of people coming to pick up sandbagscompared to last year," said ownerTerryHolowachuck. "People's properties are starting to get saturated now, instead of the water going around its now being held and kind of going upagainst their house."

Allan Eisses, who cleans out eaves and gutters, is also seeing more businessfrom the rainy summer.

"A busier time for gutter cleaningisdefinitely in the spring but with the way the rain has gone we've really not slowed down," he said.

Eisses says people usually call after a problem occurs, so he suggests having getting eaves checked before it rains.

• MORE ALBERTANEWS| 'Builders are going to be reluctant for quite a while,' ATB Financial reports as build permits slip
• MORE ALBERTA NEWS|Search underway in Alberta mountains for missing BASE jumper