Plumbing Adventures

I am tempted to start a "series" of posts of the all too true and terrifying events that happen to me in the name of "home improvement and maintenance." If you need some background on my incredibly awful "luck" or "karma", whatever you call it. Please read THIS and THIS first.

Ok, now that you are done laughing, read on . . . and here's a warning: this is disgusting and if you have heart troubles, weak stomach or a sensitive gag reflex - STOP READING NOW!

This sort of begins a last month. While Jim and my mom were here, we got a dishwasher installed and Jim graciously installed a garbage disposal for us. The dishwasher has revolutionized our (well at least my) life! I love the thing. I use it all the time, relishing the ease of doing dishes and enjoying all the extra time I have to play with Matine and do the 6 million other household things that are required to keep my sanity (or drive me insane?).

Well, a few weeks after it's installation and AFTER the super handy MacGyver Jim leaves (of course) the kitchen sink starts draining really slow. Hmmm... Interesting... I pour massive amounts of Drano Max down it, bleach, scalding hot water... Nothing. Still slow. I mention this to Peter... Could it be because of the dishwasher? I don't think so, but the timing sure is odd.

Time goes by. About a week before I go to Tulsa, 7am, Pete comes up from the laundry room on his way out the door, late for guiding. I hear a bit of a mumbling "there's water in the basement... we have a leak... bye, I love you."

Hmmmm.... I get distracted, assuming it's a small leak or he would have made a bigger deal of it. About an hour later I hear a "hissing sound." A LOUD hissing sound, one that sounds a bit like a gas leak. Baby is asleep (thank God), the cousins Loni and Marni were here that day. I run down stairs and see water SPRAYING out of one of our copper pipes near the ceiling above the water heater! EEKKKK! I scream. Is it just water? Is there a gas leak also? It sounds different? Is the house going to explode? Was it spraying like this when Peter left? Should I get the baby up and get her out of the house? Am I over reacting and it's just water? Probably... But now what do I do. The basement has water EVERYWHERE and the leak is up high... I can't even reach it to look at it. What day is it? Sunday, of course. Plumbing problems don't happen during a WEEK DAY... Never, only early in the morning or late at night when you get charged TRIPLE for a plumber. Well, I can't leave water shooting all over our basement all day and let Peter deal, or wait until tomorrow. So, luckily we know this really really nice guy, Kirk who serves as a plumber by day and kayaking addict at night and on the weekends. I call Kirk at 8am on Sunday ("please don't be on a river trip... please.....). He answers, I beg, he comes over groggy from being woken up.

That turned out to be a pretty simple fix. One hour and $20 later he has replaced a corroded pipe and he leaves. I ask about the slow sink ... Could they be related. "No" he tells me. Good. We will just deal with the sink later. Kirk wants to go back to bed and I now have a baby waking up.

Fast forward to this week. Sink REALLY slow. Right before we have some people over for dinner it completely backs up. Water stuck in both sides, not budging. Gross. Was it the leftovers I dumped in there earlier today when I cleaned out the fridge? Maybe, but the problem started before that...Right?

Where is the plunger? I spend 1 hour looking for our plunger... Nowhere to be found. Seriously? How do you lose a plunger? It's not like it's a tool or object that you take ANYWHERE EVER. They stay in your house, hidden from sight and used only rarely (you hope). Where the heck is it? Not sure...

Well, we let the water sit... It's late, order dinner in. Tomorrow I will BUY A NEW FREAKING PLUNGER surely to find my "missing one" the second I get home and use the new one. $8 I will never see again.

Next day... have the cousins Loni and Marni over again... AND they have a snake! They told me they bought one last month to deal with their own plumbing fiasco.

So, we snake, we plunge... I get the good job of holding down a plug on one side as Pete plunges (with the NEW plunger) the other side. Of course the massive force of water is too much for my puny arms and water sprays out of the sink all over me... Chunks of food. Yummm... All over me. Pete just chuckles silently as I drip our backwashed sink water that has now been sitting for 40 some odd hours.

No luck after all of us snaked, dranoed, plunged.

I call Kirk again. Over he comes that night like a faithful golden retreiver. He assessed the situation and decided he needed another tool, so the next morning he comes over again with his high powered equipment. All I can think of is "how much is this going to cost? and "Will we be tearing out walls and siding?"

This gets complicated, read carefully: Again, good baby sleeps during all of this on Monday morning... Kirk runs the high powered snake from the kitchen sink down the exterior wall into the vertical pipe that leads to the main. This pipe is fortunately exposed and in our downstairs basement office (no tearing out walls necesary). We then go down there to snake from the vertical pipe into the pipes that lead under the floor to the Main. He spends 1/2 an hour cranking on some big lug nut thingy on some "Y" so he can get it off and into the next section of pipe. It is caked with really really gross grime (probably been building since 1957 when the house was built). It stinks... It is essentially bacteria x 1000 wafting into the air just like a very pungent gas. It looks like tar with chunks of cheese and shrimp in it. He says the pipe under the floor to the Main Line is now free and clear, so all he needs to do is go back upstairs and snake down the vertical pipe from the sink further until he gets to this "Y" (that is now open, pointing into the office room) and clear the entire thing...

I lay down plastic tarps and towels in case there is some "spillage." It's my job to yell when I see a plug move down past the opening or hear the snake getting close or pass the Y opening.
So, he snakes, I stand over this opening cautiously waiting to see disgusting black tar sewage pass through the pipe. I have my head right at the opening and the flashlight pointed right at it so I don't miss it.

Well, maybe you can guess what happens next. The snake unplugged something for sure. As soon as it did a 6 inch diameter flow of black, tar, chunky sewage that has been riping for 50 years comes PROJECTING (a bit like the Exorcist) 2 feet out of the hole, into my face, all over the walls and all over the office! Needless to say - my plastic tarp was WAY too small! I scream. He stops snaking.

Well, plumbing problem fixed. After bleaching the floors, the walls, the desk, myself, 2 showers, and 2 trashbags of scrap towels later the room doesn't smell AS bad and the sink works. Yay. Baby wakes up.

Now I just need add "new carpet" to the list of things that we need to do and can't afford and do something about the nightmares I am having of being chased by a vommiting sewage pipe that smells like Death.

I hope you appreciate that fact that there are no pictures of this incident.