FL Project #6

 FL Project #6

Nightmare!   Just when we thought the work projects were minimal to nonexistent, the toilets started bubbling when we ran any sinks and everything drained slowly.  We initially thought that the park crews were doing something up at the corner because there were trucks with spools of plastic pipe on them parked up there.  I rode my bike up there and asked, finding out that they were not doing anything to the sewers. They were a lateral boring crew for cable.

Now this was serious.  I put drano down.  Nothing.  Then got a gallon of this:

Figured that would do the trick.  I plunged the toilet after a night and raw sewage bubbled up into the floor of the new shower in the same room!  In fact, any water drained anywhere in the house forced more raw sewage up that drain, pushing the straining lid off and corrupting the rubber fitting below.

After a day, I went and got another gallon, putting it in the other toilet, because we don't really know whick toilet is closest to the main line, which by now, I knew was plugged.  Lots more plunging to no avail.  Waited through the weekend because we didn't need to incur an overtime fee from a plumber, and I was hoping the plug would suddenly let go.

It didn't.  On Monday we called Dunstan Plumbing because we have seen their trucks in the park.  In the afternoon a young guy drove in and we walked around the house to assess where a cleanout port might be, finding none.  This prompted him to climb through the little entry to the underside of the double wide.

In a bit he came back with the bad news that the main line travels to the south in the direction of the pond on the east corner and that he thought that for some reason the home had settled and crushed in the pipe.  He went under again after consulting on the phone with the office.  I was gnashing my teeth, fearing a major job coming, perhaps needing to jack up the house, dig trenches, pour footings, any number of expensive nightmares.

He came out again with improved news.  A triangular brace, made of angle iron and weighing a couple hundred pounds had let loose and fallen on the pipe, shearing it off at a joint and blocking the flow in the process.  The sewage piled up and the two gallons of opener piled up.  He dragged a sawzall and a splice under there, propped up the triangular brace, which was something only used fifty years ago when the semi dragged the two halves of the home in, and spliced the line back together again.

Everything flushed and everything drained.  Cathy cleaned up all the mess and I screwed the screen back on over the entry to beneath the home.  Cost: $250 and I felt what this kid did was worth every cent, even though now I could do it if it happened again.  I now know where the main line exits the house and perhaps we will have a cleanout installed on that corner in the bushes.  

A couple tasks have been generated though.  The shower drain needs repairing and I really should go beneath and inspect everything so that there is no leaking and that the moisture barriers are intact.

Much relief.  Five days later now and everythig is working fine!