We could see the finish line, and it was soooo close. The basic elements of the house – paint colors, ceiling, flooring - had come together nicely, and Amazon shipments of curtain rods, towel hooks, rugs, bed frames and mattresses were arriving daily. Meanwhile, Greg and I scurried around mowing the acre-plus lawn, staining and polyurethaning boards that would become bedside tables, and generally managing through chaos.
Our very first guests were set to arrive on Friday, and it seemed that each day leading up to that drop-dead date we were walking through quicksand. Despite having all the elements at our fingertips, the house looked no different by the end of each day. Clutter remained all over the floors so they couldn’t be swept. We couldn’t figure out where to store the clutter, so it remained. I didn’t want to hang the curtains over a dirty floor, and I couldn’t clean the floors because of the clutter. Everything was in a very frustrating holding pattern.
Finally, Wednesday was a big day. Our daughter, Erin, came down from KC specifically to help spiff and clean the house so that it would be guest-ready. We stashed the clutter in the garage, our lake house, our cars - anywhere we could think of. We washed all the windows both inside and out, and swept/vacuumed and mopped and washed load after load of laundry, dishes and glasses before storing them away. At one point Greg and I were looking at something back in the bathroom and we heard a weird “glug, glug, glug…” from the shower drain. “That’s weird…huh – I wonder why it made that sound.” That’s as far as our thought process went at the time. A short while later a toilet was flushed in the other bathroom and rather than going down, the water instead rose higher and higher in the bowl. You all know the panic that overcomes in that moment, right? That’s when we finally connected the dots and realized that we had a BIG problem. And it wasn’t going to be pretty.
Nearly two years ago when we began the process of renovating this house, one of our first courses of action was to turn off the water and remove all fixtures.We used absolutely NO plumbing in all that time, because it all had to be replaced. Every pipe in every wall. Almost every fixture (we saved the tub.)
We finally installed a working toilet only last November, after surviving more than a year without one. And since that time it’s been used, ya know – a bit while we’ve been over here, along with the bathroom sink. So in other words, we have not contributed a ton to our septic system since we’ve owned this house. Yet somehow, for some reason on the day that we were power-loading the septic tank with laundry and dishwasher water, we experienced a back-up.
The “Honey Wagon” septic man arrived Thursday morning and pumped out what was there, but he had a hunch that the real problem was worse - a bad clog, or a crushed pipe possibly.(Me: Blood pressure rising; panic setting in.) He, of course, doesn’t do that stuff – you’ll have to call another company for that.(Me: Blood pressure now through the roof, panic alarming, now looking toward nearby deadly cliff, thinking this might be my only out.)Septic guy, noting the look on my face, volunteers to call Drain Clean Out guy (Mike) for me.Mike can’t come until Thursday evening.Fine. OK – Thursday evening.I’ll take it – whatever.Just BE here before our guests arrive, and get the issue resolved.
Mike arrived earlier than expected - a nice surprise that hopefully signaled that this bad situation might become nothing but a memory with happy hearts and rainbows floating all about. He set to work with his huge electronic tunneling snake, dredging from the yard toward the house. He worked and worked at it, but the dredging stopped at a specific point in the yard. He then set to work INSIDE the house filling the bathtub and kitchen sink full of water, turning on every faucet and flushing all toilets. He flooded the system with so much water and snaked and dredged, hoping to knock the blockage loose. Finally, success! He felt that the amount of water draining from the house to complete its run to the septic tank seemed equal, and we celebrated with happy cheers and rainbows and happy hearts all around! Crises averted, we finished cleaning on Friday, guests arrived later that day, and all seemed well.
The family of six, including teens and young adults, arrived Friday afternoon and used the house as anyone would. Showers, baths, laundry, toilets – just living life. Suddenly by 6:00 PM Monday THEY realized that water was not heading in the right direction. The house became flooded with water from the shower drain and toilet, seeping all over the bathroom floor and underneath the wall to the front door. Bath towels and anything they could find were thrown on the floor to try to sop up the water, to no avail. The water was relentless. They called me and I called Mike, and he arrived soon after. A neighbor, hearing our plight, quickly arrived on scene with his backhoe. (I’ve noted previously how amazing this neighborhood is, right?!)
A hole was dug, revealing the REAL culprit and Mike’s first suspicion: A crushed pipe. Sorry guests – you cannot send another single drop of water down any drain until this is fixed. Delightful.
Why a crushed pipe, you ask?Well, to be honest it was my fault.You see, around a year and a half ago I called the power company because the power pole near our house was ratty-looking and leaning.It looked kind of ugly, and was clearly visible outside the kitchen window.I wondered whether they might take pity on us and decide to replace it.A YEAR AND A HALF AGO.Since that time we witnessed on our security cameras, three different power company workers roll up to the house, take copious measurements and pictures, write notes in their log books, and leave.They never left a note, a hang tag on the door, a sticker – nothing!
Finally, around two months ago I called to follow up, and after a few more weeks of back and forth and confusing conversations we finally learned that YES, they DO want to replace our pole. (Sorry we didn’t tell you, they said – it’s a non-critical change, so it was pushed out…) It’s actually unsafe because it’s leaning, BUT there’s a catch: you have non-conforming overhead power leading from the pole to your garage, and that is no longer OK. YOU will have to dig a trench, pay an electrician to move the connection down to the trench and into your garage before we will agree to move this pole.
Hmmm…well, given all that and the fact that it is now mid-July and we are pushing all cylinders just to meet our guest deadline, we are no longer interested in pole replacement at this time, thank you. Their response: WRONG! This has now become critical to us, and we will be arriving July 22nd to replace your pole. There’s the date, right there. Deal with it. And so it was.
On the appointed date, the power company planted their huge truck right on top of our septic line to pull and replace our decrepit and leaning power pole. Isn’t it beautiful? Sooooo worth it, right??
Yeah, so our “free” pole has so far cost us over $1K in damages ranging from a nicked electrical wire to our well pump, resulting in no water to the house ($400 - electrician), two visits from Mike, the friendly drain clean-out tech ($600), one unhappy family of six with no use of toilets or showers for over 12 hours, and over 500 new grey hairs in my head. And that does not include additional work that the power company is insisting upon – burying and re-connecting the power to our garage. Who knows how much that will cost. For now the electrical lines are simply laying across the yard, which is a great look for all comers. Thanks, Carroll Electric. Nice pole.
Back to the septic back up: Early the next morning, Greg and I dashed out to buy a new section of septic pipe and two connectors. We went ahead and bought four connectors because – what if?! By 8:30 AM we were on scene. Why did I wear a white t-shirt and tennis skort for this type of work? What was I thinking??!!
In any case, I got into the pit and dug dirt away from the pipe at both ends that were to be cut away, and Greg reached down with his "Sawzall" to cut the bad section of the pipe away. The section farthest from the house cut away easily with no disruption to the area, so I didn't think a thing about it. He then worked on the portion nearer to the house (where the blockage began.) The pipe was stubborn and difficult to cut all the way through. Yes, effluent leached out and was disgusting, but I just stepped aside and all was well. Then Greg asked me to jostle the pipe back and forth because he couldn’t seem to get a clean cut through the entire pipe, so I gamely took hold of the pipe with my gloved hands and began to wrench it back and forth. Suddenly a pipe-sized, cylindrical 6” long thick brown chunk flew out, followed by a powerful spout of putrid dark liquid. I swear I have not vertically jumped so fast or so high since my cheerleading days in the mid-70’s. Miraculously I was able to spring out of there just before being engulfed in gallons and gallons of fetid backed up sewage. I fished the clog out and threw it in a trash bag. Yes, I did. Now the pipe had to be repaired.
It seems that at this point our guests, Jill and Tony, who had been amazingly kind and flexible through this entire mess, took complete pity on me.Tony had actually helped a good friend with his septic system before and wasn’t averse to getting his hands dirty.After the effluent was sucked out with our Shop Vac (trust me - a new one is now on his Christmas list), Tony allowed me to step aside, and he and Greg worked to set the new pipe in place.
Meanwhile, Jill and I watched the goings-on from the Adirondack chairs on the patio while sipping our morning coffee. Once the new pipe was secured we thoroughly tested the house and pipes and all seemed well. Given the "All Clear" signal, the pipe pit was covered with dirt and we called it a day.
That was Tuesday morning. We heard not a peep from our guests through the rest of the week, which was great news. It seems that all is well – FINALLY!
I hope and pray that we, nor certainly our guests, will never, ever, EVER have to deal with anything like that again. But we have so much to be grateful for: understanding and helpful guests, neighbors that jumped in to assist, and accommodating service folks. OH – and let’s not forget the BEAUTIFUL new power pole.
OH! Were you interested in seeing some Before and Afters? Get that popcorn ready because it’s a video. Here ya go:
We are ready for guests. Let me know if you'd like to come down for a visit, now that everything's fixed. We would love to see you all!