There are more than a few things in my life and in my families lives that have just gone so incredibly wrong in so many ways that no one could possibly believe it. This is likely one of those times.
You see it all started about a month ago. The water wasn't draining so well out of the bath tub. This happens every year about this time of year but it generally clears itself up after a few days. When it didn't clear up and it started to get worse we started taking action.
The first thing we tried was pressure washing the lines. I have a handy little tool that goes on the end of a hose, you stick the tool and the hose down the pipe. The tool blows up like a balloon which keeps the water from coming back up the line and then sprays out a super powered stream of water to wash away the blockages. Well, that didn't work. It just caused the sewage to come up in the bathtub instead. I tried putting it down the bathtub drain and I couldn't get it in far enough to function right. The balloon was blowing up out side of the drain! So, We gave up for the night.
Over the next couple of days we tried about three different types of Draino, all of which were ineffective.
The next day I take my little hand held manual snake and I try to run it down the toilet which it wont go far, down the tub, it wont go more than a few inches, ok, fine. I load up for bear. I dig out the keys for the crawlspace under the house (I put locks on it years ago because strangers were crawling under houses in our neighborhood to steel copper pipes to recycle even while people were home!) I open the crawl space and there must have been twenty spider egg sacks sitting on the lid itself... So I attack those with sticks laying around my yard.... I clean up the big spider webs the best I can. I then go in and change into pants I don't care if I loose, I tuck the ends into my socks and put my sneakers on. I put on my hoody and grab my bandanna to wrap around my nose and mouth, tighten the hood on the hoody down so there is no way a spider is getting in without me seeing it. I then put a baseball cap on top of all that just to help keep spiders away from my face should they decide to drop down on my head. Then I add on the rubber gloves and all the gear I'm going to need which includes a flashlight, a bucket and my little 25 foot hand held snake.
Well my crawl space really isn't all that bad compared to most. The spiders haven't seem to taken it hostage quite as bad as I had anticipated. I crawl all the way back threw the creepy hole in the cement foundation that splits our house into two area's back to where the plumbing for the toilet is to look for a clean out, there isn't one. ok... so I go back into the front area where there is a pipe that goes into the ground from the kitchen area that I can easily get to. I forgot to bring a screwdriver, ugh! ok so I leave all the tools there, crawl back out on my now very tender knees and go find a screwdriver, because I'm awesome enough I'm trying to get this taken care of by myself.
Side note here: Shane has an unreasonable fear of spiders, therefor they seem to swarm towards him as if to tell him they aren't so bad. Now I on the other hand have had a healthy appreciation of spiders since they saved us from the mosquitoes on our vacation to Alaska many, many years ago (another story I will tell on here eventually). I didn't mind them being in the garden or outside the house, now if they made it inside they would die. But Shane's fear and the resulting phenomenon can make even the bravest of spider lovers turn into arachnophobs. So by me trying to snake the line under the house without his assistance, I was really trying to save us from both being wrapped up and stored for later by a mass of hungry spiders rivaling the experience in the Lord of the Rings trillogy or better yet the Harry Potter series.
So I go back up and I find a screw driver. I brave the spider infested hole again and make my way back over to the pipe. I unscrew the brackets, remove the cover and I snake out the line using the bucket to catch anything that comes out. I take the line out the full 25 feet and nothing. The clog is longer than my line can reach. oy! I reattach the pipe and cover. I haul everything out of the hole and I stand out there and undress out of the now filthy and spider infested gear. I totally had the creepy crawlies and I couldn't even take a shower to get rid of that feeling!
So I text Shane and he responds back with "I thought we agreed to do things the easy way from here on out." I was hopeful, I really was, but I knew without me having a job right now there was no way we were going to be able to afford it. But we both independently went online and looked it up, we both saw the deal from Rotorooter on their web site. I called. The plumber guy came out. he did all the same things I did, he crawled under the house he looked for a muck out when he realized he was going to have to go through the toilet he quoted us 350.00 to do the job regardless of what their web site said. I said thanks but no thanks.. I can rent a machine and do it myself for less than a third of that cost. Shane texted a while later and told me his buddy at work could loan us his electric snake, but it is self feed. Now that we knew where to go in at he felt better about us trying it on our own.
It took a couple days to get the snake from his buddy. When we got the snake we went ahead and tried taking the toilet off. The problem with taking the toilet off was two fold. First the nuts were essentially welded on to the bolts. Second, the bolts were spinning freely, so any chance of getting them off easy was gone. Welp, I called my dad. He is my go-to man for anything construction related. "go get a grinding head for your drill." he said, "and grind the nutts off. Don't worry about the finish on the toilet just get the nut off". We spent days trying to grind the nuts off, DAYS! We even took turns with the drill between charges. On the last day I was home alone trying to get the last one off and I "She Hulked it". I broke, no shattered our only toilet.
Craigslist.com to the rescue! I got on craigslist and did a search for free toilets and I found three. the first one that responded back was the one I went with. I waited all afternoon for this woman to tell me I was allowed to go pick it up, it was about 4pm by the time it was loaded in my FJ. The thing fell sideways on the way home. I couldn't tell you how freaked I was about the possibility that I had broken not 1 but two toilets in one day, that would have been a new personal record even for me, but alas it was ok when I got it home!
Shane and I spent the majority of the evening trying to snake the line, but we just couldn't seem to get it to go very far. I had a good scare when my glove got caught on the line and it tried to take my finger off! Luckily I was smart and took my foot off the power peddle. After fighting with the cord for a minute or two I realized I could just take the glove off. Later I discovered you're only supposed to wear leather gloves with this tool so that exact thing doesn't happen! Shane did most of the work the rest of the night on it, I think we were both scared to let me attack it again. When it started getting late we admitted defeat for the day and we played computer games the rest of the night.
The next day I was back at it by myself. I was determined I was going to have a working shower that day!!! I fought and I fought with that machine. I couldn't get it to go down the pipe, then I finally got it, but then it started randomly popping out of it's holder and flying all over the place, the thing was trying to get me, it was dangerous! I took it slow, I tried to force it down, it wasn't any good. This snake was heavily bent in places and I thought at the time that was what was causing it to pop loose like that, turns out I was wrong, it was binding up in the pipe.
I was the biggest grumpy butt you could have ever witnessed that night. I haven't had a shower for days. I had been playing in sewage and under the house for almost two weeks now. I was pissed, I was stressed, I stunk so bad I don't think even the Ninja Turtles could have been on the same block as me. Shane loaded me up and took me to a truck stop to shower, I at least felt human again. I took the next day off from working on sewage lines. Shane came home that day with a bottle of root killer... we shoved that down the drain and waited. It didn't work either.
The next day after that I decided that a self feeding line seemed a lot safer and a lot easier than what we were trying to do so I went and rented a 100 foot snake. The guy at Home Depot got me ramps so I could unload it and load it by myself (this thing is heavy!) and he loaded it into the FJ for me which was super appreciated! I get the thing home and unloaded thanks to the ramps. I manage to get it up the porch step and into the house and then it gets stuck trying to get into my tiny bathroom door! I eventually managed to 'She Hulk" it into the bathroom (my unpredictable strength does come in handy at times!).
I got the snake all set up and start feeding it into the pipes. I couldn't believe how much easier this was! Then I notice after a while that something was moving in my front yard. I look out my window and the snake is coming out of my roof and coiling in my front yard! You have got to be kidding me. I had no idea that was even possible. I go out the front yard, detangle the sewer snake and then go back in the house to wind it back up. I just knew it was too good to be true. I go across the street and grab Mrs. Clause to watch the roof for me in case it comes out again... it did, three more times. I gave up and called Home Depot, they suggested I bring this snake back and get the smaller diameter 75 foot snake. So I did I got this thing loaded back in the FJ went back to the store switched out machines. they gave me a free pair of leather gloves and this time I got the accessories I needed to do the job right. They also didn't charge me for renting the big snake and reset my time, I'm so thankful to them for treating me right, at a time I was so vulnerable. I came home and this time I was able to get it down the right pipe! I snaked out the whole 75'..... and my drain was still clogged.
No. This is not ok. This is what god does when he is bored. He throws stupid stuff at us like this and laughs and laughs and laughs. This really should have been solved with one of the first three snakes but no, I'm on snake number 4 and I still can't fix this stupid drain. I went back to home depot and returned the snake, Shane helped me load it up this time. The guy at the counter gave me an additional discount even above and beyond not charging me for the first snake. Again, I was so thankful that they were so understanding during this challenging time for us.
The next day Shane talked me into calling RotoRooter again... this time to put a camera down there to tell us if we have a break in our line and if so, where? The guy came out. took a look at our setup, refused to do the free camera inspection and gave us a quote of $2500.00+ to build us a cleanout. NO THANK YOU Mr. RotoRip-off!
We spent the weekend trying to figure out what we were going to do. We were talking about digging up and replacing the sewer line ourselves. I already had a call into the city to see what a permit was going to cost and another call into the utilities so we could get the sewer line marked. our appointment was Wednesday of the next week for the utilities to come out and let us know where we needed to dig. The guy came out and he was really sweet. He showed us all kinds of things and gave us really good and helpful information. Things like our pipes are made of clay and they are known for having to be replaced. Thank you very much to the cheap asses who built these homes that stuck us with a problem we can not afford.
It was the next day I decided I needed a second opinion on the work. I wanted a local plumber not some national corp. I called Affordable Plumbing. I can only completely RAVE about them!!! They were amazing! The guy came out and snaked my line for $125.00 the blockage was at 80 feet! He gave me a 30 day guarantee and then the following Monday the guy with the camera snake came over to check on the line FREE OF CHARGE! Sure enough we have roots growing up into the line at approx 40 feet.
We have a break in the line. IF we were to dig the hole ourselves and then have them come in, pull the permit, fix the pipe and fill it back in. They will charge us $900.00. If they do the whole thing for us we're looking at $1500.00. He put my newish free toilet on for me, showing how much I need to buy a new one because this free toilet needs to be in the trash. He still put it on for me and it sort of works and we are able to take showers again for now! We have bought ourselves a little time, now I just need to find a job so I can afford for them to come in and do the work. I don't want to dig a 3-4' deep hole that is several feet long.
*Update* We called the plumbers back in to do the whole thing... It took another 5 days for us to have the ability to use our sewer line again... they came in, replaced a piece of pipe and added in a couple of clean outs. Then they send a guy in the next day to blow out the line with a super powered water pressure gadget hose. It took him like 20 minutes and it worked like a charm. It's been a few weeks now so I think it is safe to say that
we are ok for at least a year.
OMG...... You provide my life more drama than a sitcom. Man I miss being a part of that!!
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