Friday, September 08, 2006
At least I like to think we're good people. After this past week I'm thinking maybe we're not as good as we think. Either way, our plumbing is up and running and minus the fact that half of our entire front yard is a big pile of soil and sewage things are back to normal--including the mountain of laundry I get to conquer, once again.
It all started out fun enough. You can imagine the level of excitement in our house full of boys when we announced that an excavator would be arriving in our front yard around 2:00pm. And although it wasn't quite 2:00pm (try 5:00pm instead) Mark's wish earlier this week that we could "have an excavator in our front yard" came true. Denver couldn't wait to get outside with his own excavator and it wasn't long before most of our neighbors had gathered around to watch what was going on.
The fun ended when two feet in they discovered the cesspool--stinky! A few minutes later our pipe was revealed and sure enough, it had collapsed in four different places. They tell us because of all the rain we've had, the weight of the rocks and soil became too much for our clay pipe and eventually, it caved in. They snaked the other leg of pipe and after several attempts they finally declared that pipe free and clear--no holes, no more roots, still usable.
Of course, because they didn't start until 5:30pm that meant they had to work late into the night. And while most of our neighbors seemed to be very understanding (several offered their bathrooms and sinks to us) there were a few that were a little upset about the late night lights and beeping (I'd love to see them go for a week without plumbing and then tell their plumber to quit working at 5:00pm so the neighbors could get a good night's sleep.)
Despite being about 5 hours behind schedule constantly, we had a great work crew. The plumbers were hard workers and knew exactly what they were doing. Mark had fun watching them, asking questions, joking around with them and pitching in here and there. They had fun with the boys and didn't freak out when they wanted to look into the giant hole they'd made or stand a little closer to the excavator. I will definitely keep their number for the next time (which I'm really hoping never happens.)
Here's our new pipe. I'm not sure why they didn't just go ahead and replace the other leg of pipe while they were in there, but I think they were trying to be quick and fix the immediate problem without costing us extra money. We're definitely going to look into AAA's Sewer Protection Line for next time. This time we're hoping our Homeowner's Insurance will cover some or all of the repair without increasing our premium too much (yeah, right.)
Now all we have left to do is fix this. Oh, and cut down that tree. We're hoping we can get the city to come chop the tree down for us. And as for the lawn--Fall is a great time for reseeding lawns. Somehow we just have to figure out what to do with all those roots sticking up out of the ground.
posted by Shana # 9:23 AM 
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