Joys of homeownership

As a wee little Medical Technology student at Austin Peay State University (Let’s go Peay!), one of the ways we learned intestinal bugs was by source.

Mayonnaise = Staph

Chicken = Salmonella

“Fresh mountain streams” = Giardia

Salad bars or dubious sanitization = Hepatitis C

Fried rice = C. dif

Hamburger = E. coli

That last couple are the ones of interest to this story.  It explains how a small amount of C. dif can get into your gut.  Usually, it’s crowded out by the normal flora of the intestines, but what happens when you eat at that Chinese restaurant that got a “B” on its last health inspection then at the burger joint that got a “C”?

Well, that nice little E. coli gives you a nice case of the poops.  The next day, you drop by the doctor, who gives you a scrip for some antibiotics.  Those wipe out the E. coli, but also all of your other Gram-negative normal intestinal flora.  As a result, there is nothing to displace the C. dif, and you end up in the hospital with an even worse and harder to treat case of the poops.

What does this have to do with plumbing?  Well, besides plumbing being where the infected poop goes, it is a perfect example of a treatment that causes unforeseen problems that are even worse than the original complaint.

When we entered our new home a few weeks ago, we were thrilled to finally be a place where the water went down the drains in a timely fashion.  Unfortunately, the Shieldmaiden voiced her contentment, at which point the Plumbing Gods perked up their ears and said, “Hey!  How did you get away from us?  We’re not done with you yet!”

It turns out that when a house sits for a few months, the pipes sometimes clog.  Not unheard of, so I borrow a Milwaukee powered snake.

This is where things got interesting.

Whoever thought using ferrous metal to carry water through damp ground was a good long-term solution to waste disposal is probably spending eternity unplugging Satan’s toilets.  I mean, really, I’m pretty sure that the phenomenon of “iron + water + time = rust” has been observed for a few millennia.

I unscrewed the cleanout and inserted the snake.  I ran into obstruction almost immediately and, after attempting to work the snake through it, withdrew the snake.  On the tip was gray clay.  This was my first hint that something was wrong.

After several attempts of alternating snake and Drain King, I ordered a USB sewer camera from Amazon.  While waiting for it to arrive, I rented a larger sewer auger from the local Ace Hardware.  Yes, Ace still exists.  I attempted to use it and simply got more clay.

My sewer camera arrived and I fed it down the cleanout.  My operating assumption was that it was still a clog, and I hoped that by examining it with the camera I could determine its composition and select a specific drain cleaner for it.  The plan was to then inject the drain cleaner directly into the clog using the camera to ensure placement of a vinyl tube.  Alternatively, I would use the camera to ensure placement of a snake head in the clog before turning it on.

Unfortunately, there was water obscuring the view.  Another quick trip to Ace and I returned with a long piece of vinyl tubing (that I figured I’d need anyway) and a drill powered pump.  I taped the tube to the camera and fed them both down.  After suctioning, I found I still lost view at roughly the same point.  When I pulled it back out…clay.

This left me with but one possible cause:  a broken pipe.  Which has but one recourse:  dig it up and replace it.

I had been in touch with our real estate agent off and on over the week, and she contacted the seller (another agent there) who dropped off a circular saw and brand-new DeWalt diamond blade.  I had also purchased a diamond blade.

By the end of it, the Shieldmaiden had also bought a diamond blade.

The first night, I cut a square-foot-and-a-half-ish hole.  Most people might have bought a dust mask and goggles, but I had one better.  After a tragic incident down South, I invested in the biggest fire extinguisher Lowe’s had and a Czech gas mask.  I’d have rather gotten a fire escape respirator, but those are about $300, and I figured that I didn't need to escape down a 500-yard hallway in an industrial plant full of toxic chemicals, so the $30 piece of military surplus gear would probably suffice to get my girls out of a tiny starter house before they end up buried next to me*.

So, I draped the area I would be working in, strapped on the mask, and went to work.  I scored the concrete with the saw, then busted it out with a sledgehammer.   On my first set of swings, I found that the copper water line above my head was not high enough to clear a full swing.  Fortunately, I discovered this with only bending the line, not breaking it.  The rest of my swings were taken on my knees, which considerably reduced the amount of weight I could throw into them.

I had the next day off due to the aborted deposition appointment from The Wreck, so I didn’t even bother digging up much the first night.  I cleaned off (quickly since showers over 90 seconds cause overflow of the washing machine’s output), had some painkillers, and went to bed.  The next morning, I awoke stiffer than I’ve been in a while.  I had my coffee, hobbled downstairs, pulled on the muddy, cold, and thoroughly disgusting jeans from the previous night, and went to work.

Ten hours and six Ace trips later, I emerged semi-victorious.  The hole was now about eight square feet, and the pile of busted concrete, dirt, and poop (all of which is generously soaked in bath water, pee, and dirty dish water) was about two-and-a-half feet deep.  In the course of the day, I was lacerated, abraded, infected, shocked, strained, cramped, and sprayed.   About four feet of new pipe has been laid including a double-clean-out trap.

In the process, I learned that black iron pipe is fragile and will break right off at the edge of your hole, requiring further sawing/hammering/shoveling to remove it and more trips to Ace to buy more pipe to replace it.  I also found out that while a cutoff wheel on an angle grinder is the gentlest was to cut through brittle pipe, one must take care how much water one exposes it to.

Some would have set the grinder aside...I just didn't choke up as far and dealt with the tingle.

This is what $150 in plumbing looks like.

And this is where it went.

Finally, exhausted and ready to quit, I yell up to the Shieldmaiden to turn the water on...and the washer’s outlet promptly overflows.  But slightly slower than before, so there was progress, at least.  At any rate, I throw in the towel and resign myself to another day of no dishes or laundry being done.

At work the following day, I called down to Ace on break to reserve the 50-foot auger again.  When I arrived that afternoon, they informed me that one of them had checked it out to someone and all that was available was the 100-footer.  They were good enough to just rent me the 100 at the rate for the 50.  Once home, it became apparent that I had probably lucked out, because while the nice cool cutting and auger heads didn't fit down my 3" pipes, when I sent the plain arrow tip in, I unspooled over half the drum getting to the obstruction.  Upon retrieval, I found nothing on the tip.  It was coming up on an hour since I had checked out the auger, and I was out of ideas, so despite lacking any real confirmation that I had cleared it, I said a quick prayer and fed the Drain King in anyway.  

I truned it on for about a minute, then turned it off.  Instead of backflowing as it previously had, there was a remarkable lack of disaster.  After calling for the Shieldmaiden to turn everything on upstairs and letting it run a few minutes with no complications, I tentatively declared victory and packed it in.

I refuse to formally declare victory for at least two weeks of uninterrupted success.  That said, I feel pretty sure that given the massive backlog of dishes and laundry, if it survives the weekend, we're all good.

A friend of the Shieldmaiden's remarked at the beginning of the troubles that you buy a home thinking you are buying a place to live, but in reality, you are just buying into an expensive hobby, which is a good summation.  However, in this particular case, I believe a better summation is my remark to a coworker today:

"We quit renting and bought a house because we were tired of figuratively pouring money down a hole, and now we are literally pouring money down a hole."

A deep and disgusting hone.

*Mad props to the US Army for letting them do that.