Sewer Pipe Disaster

The Monday after our awesome Thanksgiving weekend was the beginning of a whole mess of problems. To begin,.... two days prior, our bathtub had suddenly stopped draining. I just attributed it old pipes, and maybe some Hair and what not caught down in the drain. John spent an hour Monday night trying to see if he could flush, plunge, or de-clog the drain. He finally decided he could probably get a better chance of achieving that from the crawlspace. When he got down there we received the worst surprise. He found that our toilet, that had been flushing weird for the past few weeks,....Let me back up a little bit. Our toilet was leaking just a little bit of water, which we thought was coming from the old water hoes that was connected to the toilet. John replaced it thinking that would fix the problem. I still noticed a small puddle of water, but just assumed John needed to tighten the hoes. come to find out when he went into the crawl space the toilet was not flushing at all, but was backed up, and flooding our floor boards. John immediately came back up and pulled off the toilet. As he pulled the toilet back water came rushing out. The pipe was completely backed up.



We quickly evacuated the house, and thankfully the blessings began. John's parents were so gracious to let us stay in their home, where John's newly married Brother and his wife are living as well. We felt really bad for interfering in there space, and it got tense at some points, but we all made it, and came out of it all the better.

The next morning I called a few plumbers for some quotes. First was PPM. Their quote was definitely an arm and a leg. Needless to say we didn't go with them. Next was a company called Plumbing Specialists. They were much more affordable therefore they were the plumbers we used. I have since learned that sometimes affordability does not always mean quality work. They showed up an hour late, but the plumber began his work just fine. He started by trying to put a scope down the sewer line. He couldn't get it passed the first turn so he began to clean it out with a drill like devise that snaked down the sewer line. He got the blades stuck twice, and also lost the blades in the pipe as well. He finally had to just run the scope down through the vent on the roof. He was suppose to record the scoping on a tape for us, but he had forgotten to purchase more that day. He asked if I had any to spare. I only had the tape that had my ultrasounds on it. I trustingly gave it to him. He said he made sure he was passed what I had recorded on it already. He finally began to show me what was going on in the pipe, mind you I was the only one there. John had to work so it was up to me to take in all info and relay it to my Him the best I could. I was taking everything at face value. MISTAKE #2. He was showing me all the problem'd areas in the sewer line. He thought he saw two major root infiltrations and 1 major brake in the line about 40ft out from our house. I then asked him to locate where the sewer was in our yard. He took a tool out and, along with another plumber that had brought another scope because the first one broke while he was using it, both seemed to comb our front yard looking to locate the brake. They then stopped about 3 feet off the side off our driveway. He dug his foot in and said this is where your pipe is, going straight from your house out to the sewer line into the street. MISTAKE #3

P.S. We found out that you own the sewer line from your house all the way out until it attaches to the main line in the street. So if you the bad spot is in the street is in the street than your looking at thousands of dollars to have a contractor dig the street up to replace your part of the pipe, and also a city work to make sure that the job is done to the cities satisfaction. Then you pay to have the road repaved and sidewalk re-cemented. NOT RECOMMENDED

I knew my neighbor was experienced in piping and what not. That was what he did for a living. He laid the major piping throughout the cities. We decided it wouldn't hurt to ask him. He was so awesome, he practically jumped at the chance to help us.