Drain Disaster

The wet vac: my dear friend & nemesis

A few weeks before all our October travel, I noticed that there was some water around the floor drain in our basement. I asked my cousin who is a plumber about it and he said that there was probably a clog in the mainline sewer drain and that I needed to call a plumber. I called our plumber and he made one suggestion that I could try to see if it was perhaps just the floor drain that was clogged and told me to make an appointment if that didn't work. His suggestion did not work, but since we would be traveling for the next few weeks, I put off making the appointment until we got back, and then, of course, promptly forgot about it.

Well, the lovely little thing about plumbing problems is that you can't forget them for long. A few days after we got back, I found the carpets in the basement completely soaked. What at one time was about a 3 foot diameter pool of wetness was now about 100 square feet of standing water (mostly in the form of sopping pieces of carpet). I got out the wet vac and sucked up bucket after bucket (after bucket after bucket) of dingy water, lugging each bucket up the stairs and out the backdoor to dump in the yard. I put down towels and tried to soak up as much water as possible then put "call plumber" at the top of my to-do list. Underestimating the problem, we would flood the basement again by running the disposal and dishwasher.

So, first chance, I called the plumber and they sent someone out. They told me they would need to snake the line. I wrote my check and left them to their work, happy to know that I wouldn't have to give the issue another thought. Sigh.... then I got a phone call (or 2 or 3) from the plumber: the snake was stuck, really stuck and we had bigger issues and the head plumber was coming out. I was disappointed and left Darren a message warning him that the plumbing bill would be higher than we had expected.

Back at home I got a rundown on the problem. It turns out that old pipes (especially clay) can crack underground and then the leaking water attracts the nearby tree roots, which begin to cluster around the pipe. In a word, we had "rootballs." The plumbers took measurements and talked about issues and then gave me a quick estimate for the job, an estimate that was nearly 10 times higher than what I had expected when I heard that we had a real problem.

Time to drain the tub. If you want to understand how much water you use, I suggest not using your drains and make hauling your used water outside a daily task. You will be a water conservationist before you know it!!!

Fixing our rootball problem will require us to have our main sewer line replaced, this involves city permits, city inspectors, involvement of other city utilities and digging some 100 feet across the front yard and down more than 9 feet to reach the pipe. Upon receiving information from the other utilities, we learned that our other lines are in such close proximity to our mainline that hand digging (and perhaps repair of the other utility lines) will be required increasing our total expense by about 20%.

Though we currently have running water in the house (for which I am grateful), we have not been able to use any of our drains for more than quickly brushing teeth or washing hands or "simple" toilet flushes since Monday. We are being creative. I got out several big pots for washing/rinsing dishes and the dishwasher has become a giant drying rack. The tub is plugged, and I suck up any water used for bathing using the wet vac and throw it out of the bathroom window. When we started to run 'dangerously' low on laundry, I stuck the washing machines drain hose out the nearby window to complete a few loads. I have tossed more tubs of water into the yard than my arms care to remember, and I would be fine to never hear the sound of the wet vac again. During the repair (which we hope will only take 1 day), we will not have any running water or gas. We are preparing ourselves for the possibility that we will need to go to a hotel during repairs, but are hoping that won't be necessary.

This whole thing has been quite an ordeal, and I'm proud to say that Darren & I have only had one argument (after we first got the news), and I have only shed a few tears (upon reading the what-I-hope-to-be-final estimate). I am trying my best to stay positive, though this will be a major blow to our savings and will deeply affect other plans we had for the house, namely the kitchen/dining room remodel.

The new, dirty dish routine, which really isn't too terrible. The worst part is that after you've done all the work to wash and rinse and stack the dishes you have to lug giant pots of water outside to dump.