Sunday, January 13, 2013

Our sunday guests

Sometimes having a house isn't pretty. Take this morning, for example,when I started a load of laundry, and watched dirty, stinky water fill the basement drain right up to the top, and start pouring out across the basement floor.

Luckily through our house adventures so far, we've worked with a really good general contractor, who referred a good plumber, who referred a good drain guy. So this Sunday, our guests are the drain guys(not sure what they're technically called, so drain guys it is! haha). And we were happy to see them arrive! Within 10 minutes of arriving, he was digging through our tile floor to expose a drain that hasn't been opened since the house was build in 1941. He explained that this is the drain that takes all of the used water from the house, and sends it to the city pipes.



This drain is directly under the basement couch, where we're planning on laying down carpet. When I was feeling really frustrated about the situation, it helped to think that I would be much more frustrated if the carpet was already laid, and we were moving furniture, rolling back carpet, and having drain guys walk across new carpet with 70 year old drain muck on their feet in addition to what's already happening.

Then he had to open up the drains that take water from the bathroom to that main pipe pictured above, and another from the kitchen and laundry to the main pipe. Both were clogged with 70+ years of showers, dish washing, toilet flushing, and washing machine rinsing. He also explained that even with just normal use, since most soap is petroleum based, that builds up. Especially over 70 years! The smell is really, really gross. All I can say is that drain guys are brave! Definitely "Dirty Jobs" territory in our basement this morning. The drain guy said that these drains have never been cleaned out. The caps covering each drain, towards the bottom of the pipe, had to be cut off!


They used these giant metal devices that snaked through the pipes under the basement floor and got the gunk build up out. As Will and I were upstairs listening to this all unfold and get more and more noisy, he said "what are they doing now??? the more noise I hear, the more expensive this seems like it's going to be."

House projects like this are hard. There are no pretty pictures to share at the end, and nothing all that great to show as a result, so paying the money for it is just a bummer. It needs to be done of course, but it's just no fun. All you get is the cheap (or in this case, not so cheap) thrill of washing the dishes or doing a load of laundry without a small stinky flood covering your basement floor. Here's to dry floors ahead!

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