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poo, parts I and II
Aug. 12th, 2004 10:56 amcrap.
literally.
Part I: I was holed up in my room yesterday evenining with a migrane when Ethan came in with the news: there's water on the basement floor and icky crud in the basement shower and toilet. Sewage backing up. Ick. We discovered it too late to get anybody to come deal with it same-day, but made an appointment for a plumber a friend recommends to come by this morning.
Part II: Plumber arrives. Runs shower and flushes toilet until the water drainage slows down again. Opens up sewage stack and inserts snake, complete with root-cutting attachment; this should push through ordinary blockages or cut through roots if theyv'e grown through the sewer. Instead, the snake is stopped cold about three feet out from the house even with all the pressure he and his motorized machine can bring to bear. The poor guy is exhausted, sweaty, very apologetic, and isn't going to charge us for his visit.
This is going to be much, much more expensive than we feared.
The plumber is arranging for his favorite rooter type people to come as soon as they can and stick a camera down the stack and see what they can see. The best-case scenario we're talking at the moment is quite a few hundreds of dollars for them to send the camera through, find out that it's something they can deal with using the Big Snake, probably have to remove the toilet so they can fit the snake in the bathroom, and get through whatever it is that's causing the problem.
The worse-case scenario is that they've got to dig up the entire front yard and replace our sewer main. I've had at least two friends go through that in the last two years (the second one is who recommended this plumber to me). What a pain in the ass. Good thing we're going to burning man at the end of the month.
The upside: If they do have to dig up the entire front yard, the recommended-plumber promised he'd undercut everybody else in town because he *likes* driving a backhoe.
The rooter-folk are coming in an hour or so.
literally.
Part I: I was holed up in my room yesterday evenining with a migrane when Ethan came in with the news: there's water on the basement floor and icky crud in the basement shower and toilet. Sewage backing up. Ick. We discovered it too late to get anybody to come deal with it same-day, but made an appointment for a plumber a friend recommends to come by this morning.
Part II: Plumber arrives. Runs shower and flushes toilet until the water drainage slows down again. Opens up sewage stack and inserts snake, complete with root-cutting attachment; this should push through ordinary blockages or cut through roots if theyv'e grown through the sewer. Instead, the snake is stopped cold about three feet out from the house even with all the pressure he and his motorized machine can bring to bear. The poor guy is exhausted, sweaty, very apologetic, and isn't going to charge us for his visit.
This is going to be much, much more expensive than we feared.
The plumber is arranging for his favorite rooter type people to come as soon as they can and stick a camera down the stack and see what they can see. The best-case scenario we're talking at the moment is quite a few hundreds of dollars for them to send the camera through, find out that it's something they can deal with using the Big Snake, probably have to remove the toilet so they can fit the snake in the bathroom, and get through whatever it is that's causing the problem.
The worse-case scenario is that they've got to dig up the entire front yard and replace our sewer main. I've had at least two friends go through that in the last two years (the second one is who recommended this plumber to me). What a pain in the ass. Good thing we're going to burning man at the end of the month.
The upside: If they do have to dig up the entire front yard, the recommended-plumber promised he'd undercut everybody else in town because he *likes* driving a backhoe.
The rooter-folk are coming in an hour or so.
