They say bad things come in threes.
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| Start of a 12' tunnel to leaking sewer |
I contract to have 14 piers set under our house and driven to bedrock to lift it back up and stabilize the structure. Good job. The house is stable and we can envision eventually making additional improvement to the house.
Just coincidence.
Bad Thing #2 shows up the night we head for bed in our new, bedrock grounded stable home. It had warmed up enough for me to switch to air conditioning. The blower blew all night, but the house did not cool down.
The A/C tech found that a rodent had gnawed the insulation off the control wires and the bare wires shorted-out the circuit board. Not cheap.
Knowing the risk, but hoping/expecting that after lifting the house all would remain intact, we went forward with the plan to repair the foundation. The foundation repair company, in order to warranty their work, requires a plumber to test both the water and sewer lines after their work to confirm that there are no leaks under the slab which they had just lifted.
The plumber came to my house post-foundation repair and tested the water line. Great news, no leaks. Yet, he can not find the clean-out valve needed to test the sewer line. I am charged for two tests, but I get only one test.
I write a poor review for the plumbing company. I get a call from them and they want to come back and take another look. Meanwhile, my wife (a girl!) pokes around a bit in the flower bed and finds something. She shows it to me and we are certain that she easily found the missing clean-out valve that the professional plumber could not.
Bad Thing #3 arrives when the plumber returns, I am expecting a good sewer test and an apology. I get a sewer test, no apology and the news that my sewer test failed.
The test found a leak in my sewer line... somewhere. For another $450 I can find out where my leak might be. I cough up the cash and he puts a blue, 'X Marks The Spot', in our master bedroom closet. I do what I gotta do. I call the plumbing office and schedule repair work for April 2. The excavators will dig a trench under out house to reach the problem pipe.
The first morning of April I hear trucks parking and men outside our house.
Sue is in her bathrobe drinking hot tea. I call to her, "The plumbers are here - a day early!"
"No," I say. "Yes," I say, "I mean it is April Fool's Day, but they are coming up the walk right now. You better get dressed, because underneath that bathrobe, you are naked."
My wife dashes into our room, hides her bras as they ring the doorbell. They want to come in an see the X in our closet before they start to dig so they know what point they are targeting.
They dig a hole with their power shovel and then extend it horizontally for 12 feet under our house to expose the leaking sewer pipe. The plumber will be back tomorrow to start the repair.
We are told, for good reason, that once the leaking sewer pipe is exposed, we are not to use any water; no hand washing, no showers, no laundry and certainly do not flush any toilets in the house.
When Sue got home from work that evening we took a look at the big hole under our house. Then I help her pack for a night in a hotel a couple of miles up the road. I tell her to pack her swimsuit. We go to out to dinner that evening, since under these conditions we can't even wash up dirty supper dishes afterwards. We check in to our room and change into our swimsuits.
We spend about an hour in the hotel hot tub letting the jacuzzi jets and warm bubbles wash our worries and stresses away. We are up for the complementary breakfast at 6:30 AM and I return to the house a half hour ahead of the plumber and an hour ahead of the rain.
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| Big pile of dirt A day's worth of digging to get to the leaking sewer line |
The plumber crawls into the tunnel and begins to chip away at the concrete around the broken sewer connection to be able to get a good fit and repair the pipe that cracked just below the foundation slab when our house was lifted for foundation repairs two weeks earlier. The pneumatic cement chipping tool makes the whole floor rattle and vibrate like somebody just inserted a thousand quarters into a magic fingers vibrating machine on steroids. Sue gets the willies for some reason and quickly heads back to work. I stick around to get my money's worth out the magic fingers experience.
The repairs are complete, the sewer line is re-tested and it is found to be leak-free.
We are flush with success.
We are not so flush with cash.
There is a no longer a leak in our sewer line, but there is a leak in our savings from Bad Thing #1, Bad Thing #2 and Bad Thing #3.
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| Sewer fix is complete. Plumbers with the trophy. The problem piece of PVC cut out and replaced. |
