Bet your Saturday Night/Sun Morning won't top this one! lol!

[Patti]

Bet your Saturday Night/Sun Morning won't top this one! lol!

So last night I come down to the basement to do laundry! ( We just bought this house in August), to find that we had some backup from the main sewer line. Thankfully, it wasn't much and was contained and I was able to clean it up rather quickly.

We called a plumber at 9 at night - at the cost of $160 an hour. He came, broke his first 'snake' that was electric. He proceeded to continue to try to fix the problem with another snake that wasn't long enough and then stood starring at the outtake pipe. Dh told him, if you don't have anything to fix my problem, you might as well leave, cause I'm not paying you that kinds of money to stand and stare at things. He told the guy, to send him a bill for what he thought was a fair and reasonable amount. The guy slammed his tool box into my door when he left and probably left tire marks on the pavement when he left.

So, I decided to call our City Public Works and they were here very promptly. It appears their camera says that the issue is 21.5 feet out from the house = tree roots. Apparently this problem was fixed a few years ago, but the outside contractor that did the job, never removed the roots from the tree and they have grown into our outtake pipe! So, they cleared a small path for us to get through today, with limited usage at a time and said they'd be back on Monday, hopefully, to dig up everything!

Why is it, when people do things, they can't do it right? They try and cut corners and it is the innocent guy that pays... UGH!!!!!

So now I'm sitting in the basement with my laptop, doing laundry watching the water go down the sewer pipe to make sure things don't back up with my shop vac ready and alert.

Bet you can't top this for excitement for your Sunday morning!! Might as well laugh, cause I've already cried!

 

[kimbytx]

Sadly I have lived this scenario. We had to have plumbers out several times a year to clear backups that my husband could not handle with the snake we bought. He got pretty good at it, but still there were times we still had to call. Tree roots. SAWS public works had already come and fixed the street portion a few months before. But it got so bad that they we recommending we not even flush much toilet paper. ugh! Well the last time my husband dropped the handle of this new snake he bought into the top of the pipe and could not get it out. The plumber could not get it out so they had to start digging. By that point they had already started the digging process and long story short we went ahead and had them dig it all up to the street. So this is what our yard looked like for several days! Right when they started digging they realized that SAWS had failed to put some valve on the new thing at the street so the SAWS guys had to come back and do that live. That is what the water spray was from. Needless to say my yard will never be the same but our new bigger pipes with no tree roots work great! And we are still paying it off...

THis was the first step with SAWS at the street:

and the big fun. The trench was deep enough for men to stand in it.

and it stayed like for like 3 days tile the inspector came to look at the new pipe:

So I can totally relate...it sucks big time!

 

[Patti]

OMG Kim! Thanks for sharing... and to know, I'm not alone in this terrible experience. Not that I'd want anyone to go through it! And the expense to you.... oh man!! That bites!!! Thankfully, our property is 16.5 feet from the drain pipe in the basement to the edge of the sidewalk. Apparently the issue is 21.5 feet so this makes it the city's problem and cost, hopefully!

I never would have thought this was so common, but apparently it is! The tree that was cut down, is on city property as well.... oh, you probably heard me last night in Texas!!

 

[Brandi]

Aww, Patti & Kim!! Talk about a nightmare! Kim, glad they got it all taken care of. Patti- I hope it all clears up for you ASAP.

 

[fonnetta]

Oh Man, that is really awful...So sorry Patti!

Great pictures Kim! Bummer that it was your responsibility and not the city! That is a HUGE chunk of change!!!

We have been having some flushing issues (mostly when my friend and her daughter came to stay because of her toilet paper amount) and just had a emergency plumber out a few weeks ago. He used the big snake and it was better but still had to replace the hose line on the toilet to give it more flushing power. He said it was because when our house was built they used all low flow toilets. He suggested we replace all of our toilets (3) and see it that helps. We do have a few really large established trees in our yard and my hubby and I are really hoping he is right and it's not a bunch of big roots in our sewer line.

 

[heathergw]

OH MAN!!! We went though that... not once, not twice... but three times!!!... yeah and the city said it's not their problem He have to flush some stuff (I forget what it's called) all the time now to kill the tree roots to prevent it from happening again... and our house smelled for days thankfully our plumber gave us an alarm so hopefully we catch it right away... the kicker was that we had just installed new laminate flooring and had to tear it all up and install new stuff... thankfully we had bought a few extra boxes of it, sigh...

btw, the first time it happened was when my parents were in town watching Moriah and Isaac... because I was in the hospital having Asher... that could have been there for days if my parents weren't there when it happened, oye...

hope it isn't too big of a project to fix it Patti!!!