Yesterday morning I got up as normal to get ready to go to work. I had laid out my clothes the night before, everything going normal. I was even up a tad early as the day at work was going to be a breeze.
Once showered I headed downstairs to get dressed and I found water on the floor. I heard water running, pouring, sounding like a rain storm, but inside the house!
I opened the door to the laundry room and water was raining down!
Then I realized that we had a blocked waste line!
I checked the downstairs bathroom and it was fine, flushing as normal.
By now Debbie was up and in the shower and now the indoor rain increased.
The water was standing in the laundry room, seeping under the wall and running across the kitchen floor!
It was a mess, but at least it was not sinking, appearantly all the bad stuff, let your imagination run here, had gotten out some how and all that was left was gray water, thank God!
I notified my Boss there was no way I could come in due to the situation at hand and he was cool with that.
I thought long and hard and quickly realized this was beyond my ability, or equiment.
I called our Plumber, a company I know well and have a good working professional relationship with.
Finally about 10:30am they arrived on site. I helped carry a cleaning machine upstairs. We augured thru the shower drain and got that flowing, yes! But the sinks and toilets would not exit, they poured down into the laundry room leaking around the toilet flanges.
Then he, James, snaked out the toilet, and still no relief!
Now we head outside and start digging up the septic tank, though we know it is not the problem as the downstairs bathroom still works and nothing is backing up out of it.
Working together it did not take long to un cover the lids of the tank. It was full, lots of solids, typical of needing pumping out.
James knocks off the âTâ and we do have a trickle of water coming out.
Now we bring the cleaning machine outside and start running an augur into the house. He is afraid the line may be broken under the slab and I get sick to my stomach at the thought of that!
I ask James to call a pump truck, may as well pump out the tank since we have it open.
While waiting on the pump truck James heads off to get a TV camera to put in the pipe to see what is going on.
Red arrives with the pump truck. He tries hooking directly to the waste line to see if he can suction out any blockages, but it does not work. But he did an extra good job cleaning my tank out, he even rinsed it out so that it was spic an span!
About now James returns and we start running the push camera up the line. Under the slab looks good with only a slight sag, but the pipe is not stained so it is not holding back. Further up and into the soil stack and it looks good, then the camera falls over into a horizontal run and we hit a with plug, we think cleanout? James pushes against it and it moved! With a few more shoves the camera breaks thru and water pours out of the pipe!
With the low flow toilets and the almost flat fall they used to put on the sewer pipes there is not enough water to get the paper out! The water, what little there is out runs the solids! So now we double flush every time to make sure we get the lines cleared.
Now it is clean up time.
I started wet vacuuming last night getting up as much as I could.
Today I have run the wet vac again and now have a fan blowing to dry the carpet in the laundry room. I fans blowing on the bathroom floor all night to dry it out.
I have run one load of towel in hot bleachy water and am starting another load.
I have moved out and thrown away a lot of junk we have saved. Just junk, pack ratting, so this is motivation to reduce.
Next it is to mop the kitchen dining area with hot bleach water.
Once the carpet is dry in the laundry room I will remove it and paint the concrete floor.
Oh yeah I took today off too so I could get all this done.
I am tired....
But still have a ton of work to do.
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