The plumbers were just here for the second time in two weeks. They're very good at what they do.
Now we've had some interestng plumbing problems in our lives. The first I can recall as an adult and responsible for paying the bills is frozen water pipes. Yes, they had heat tapes on them. But no, they decided to stop working when it hit 30 below. and of course it happened right on Thanksgiving Day when we were hosting the dinner. We had to cancel, of course.
Plumbers are expensive on holidays.
When I was Mayor, the city had some interesting issues. If you think your house plumbing is expensive, try having to replace a full lift pump needed to bring all the city waste up a level or three to dump it into the sewer ponds. Granted it was a city of under a thousand people at the time, as development was just starting to take off at the turn of the century, but some criminally negligent resident had flushed a whole basket of baby clothes, diapers, cans and bottles into the system, slowly enough that each item wound all the way down the path until they all jammed up the lift pump.
And they wondered why the city had to increase rates!
For an educational tour I once got to follow one of the public works employees around along the path of the neighborhood sewer line, watching him raise a few manhole covers and see what might have accumulated along the path which needed to be removed. At that time, things were pretty good. A single penny was found and removed, to be washed and spent of course. Other objects from previous inspections were mentioned during the process, including other money and possibly valuable jewelry, on up to larger line blockers. As far as I remember from my terms there, this vandalism was a one-off. Newsletters and other notices blanketed the town of course. Nobody ever confessed. Everybody paid. Those living closest to that part of town with backed up sewage in their basements paid extra.
The newest issue is for the third mobile home I've lived in (though we refer to it as modular) or the fifth for Steve. We've found a few interesting issues, like need for painting, electric work, and similar things my son Paul can do, raising or lowering closet bars for hangers, a replacement carpet (professionally done), and even an indoor plumbing issue. A lot of decorations have been hung, along with an expanding hat rack. As soon as the kits for them arrive, we'll be taping 3M film storm windows across the insides of our many huge, extremely thin and somewhat leaky windows so the furnace can get longer rests. (They're due today.) There's been furniture to assemble or reassemble, depending on how they arrived here. Light bulbs have been replaced, nightlights installed, wifi and cable put in, a better ramp for Steve's scooter in the shed, and secure bracing for the railing on the front stairs. Paul even put in new working doorbells after we told him we didn't actually need them, but the "Big Ben" tolling is actually a comforting sound.
I'm sure I'm forgetting some things. but there was always one thing needing to wait to be checked out, and it had to be done by a specialist: Checking or replacing the heat tapes and insulation under the house for the water lines. We've had our first snowfall, about 5" of very heavy wet stuff that melted the next couple days, including what the park's plow shoved across our parking pads along the streets. I contacted the park's person for the heat tape job, and last night, with a flashlight in pitch dark, another problem was found, needing an immediate fix before he'd head under to deal with heat tapes and insulation.
I understood his hesitation completely!
The sewer pipe was both disconnected at a joint by just a bit, and blocked somewhere after it dipped below ground level. Need I mention there was a "lovely" mess over the ground? We have no idea how long it's been that way. With the house up about 3 feet from the ground, give or take because of the slight slant of the hill down to the lake over its 28 x 66 footprint, we had absolutely no idea what was going on. We got an immediate referral to plumbers who could fix it, who turned out to be the same company who'd just fixed the inside problem. They open up at 6:30. I called at 6:38, and at 1:32 this afternoon the problem was fixed.
This was an old problem, with a bad repair. We know what company because they left their company name down with their repairs, so we could use them again, I suppose.
Ummm, no thanks! No really, you've done enough. Truly!
They'd had to snake out the drain previously, sometime before we bought the place. It had clogged at least once back then, but in order to snake it they had drilled a hole in the pipe (!) across the top where it hangs horizontally under the house floor studs. When it plugged again the water backed up to that hole and sewer water "escaped" all over the ground under the floor. It was bubbling out the top of the pipe at that spot, spreading lord knows where, and mostly just sitting on the ground.
Now just a note here. We watched the entire process when the new home next door was moved in, ground graded repeatedly before the concrete slap was poured, the two sections connected, the whole thing braced up on the slab by stacks of concrete blocks, utilities added, stairs built, a shed in process, furniture moving in etc. I took dozens of pictures. Apparently all of that from building up the ground to level and pouring the very thick slab is legal standard these days. Our house went in back in 2001, and we have seen no evidence of a slab under it. I won't swear there isn't one, just that we haven't looked for one. In fact, I just learned how to open the sections of skirting (they have clips) to see underneath. What I did see the night the problem was discovered was a ground cloth of some sort, with puddles sitting on it. Oh yes, along with oodles of pieces of pipes, cords, and who knows what else stored underneath inside the skirting. Usable? Or somebody saving on construction materials disposal costs?
The first thing I heard this morning when I called the plumber was to not use any water until everything was fixed later this afternoon. No showers, no laundry, no washing dishes, and above all, no flushing!!! Good thing I'd already figured the last thing out! I mean, not so good when I walked back in the bathroom, but good for the plumbers. There was one trip to the nearest gas station.... but the gas tank is now full, and there is now antifreeze in the washer fluid tank. Besides, I bought a lottery ticket that'll be as useless as all the others over the years. I think of them as a cheap entertainment tax, the basis for fantasies of "what if".
We can use water now. The house probably smells better but I can't tell since my nose hasn't improved that much after all. Or perhaps it's in rebellion. Whatever gasses filtered up inside while the problem was developing we both have become nose blind to, but the timing is great since we're hosting Turkey Day this year. Now I have to contact the Park guy about the pipe heat/insulation job, but I won't blame him if he decides to wait a couple days.
It's forecast to be in the low 50s for the next week anyway.
