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Drain Horror!
Teri went to City Hall, and found out something scary:
Every homeowner is solely responsible for the drain line all the way from their house to the sewer itself - normally, in the middle of the street.
That means that if the drain line breaks under the street, the homeowner must pay to have the street excavated. They must also pay off-duty police officers overtime pay to guard the hole, round the clock - and overtime pay is at least $50 per hour. They must pay to have the repairs made, and then they must pay to have the street (and sidewalk, if necessary) restored to its original condition.
The bill for all that is likely to be well over $10,000.00, and it could even run over $20,000.00. And Allstate, at least, won't pay a dime. Allstate sucks!
Now fortunately, I watched as they scoped our drain line all the way down to (and into) the sewer. It's absolutely fine, except for maybe five feet from the house. So we should be okay. But our pipe is clay - vibrations can cause cracks, allowing roots to grow in. In other words, old pipe can definitely break. And I don't know about other citizens, but $20,000.00 would wipe us out. I don't expect that to happen to us - that would be just too ridiculous, after everything else that's happened, and our pipe was, in the words of the plumber "beautiful" - but it's amazing that there's this relatively unknown Sword of Damocles hanging over the head of so many unaware people.
Interestingly enough, there's only one town in all of Rhode Island that repairs drain lines which are on city property (i.e. under the sidewalk or street), and that's Pawtucket. I don't know why. I also don't know how the issue is covered in other states. But damn, it's a scary thing.
As for the job itself, we've now gotten four quotes. The original quote was by the guys who handled our old main drain trap - holy cow, I don't seem to have written about that! Wait - I wrote about it in an old issue of Chatter on my RQ site. Suffice it to say that two months after we moved into the house, we had to have the basement jackhammered up. The guys who did it did a decent job.
They're the ones who scoped the line this time, and they gave us an estimate of $2,800.00. We'd have to remove the front yard fence ourselves, or they'd charge us to do it. The advantage they have is that we know they're competent and honest, and they've already worked on the same pipe from the inside of the house.
Another plumber gave us an estimate of $2,300.00. But Teri didn't like him; he wouldn't look her in the eye (I was at work when he came by to make the estimate). Teri's a good judge of character, so that's good enough for me.
Plumber #3 didn't come inside the house; he checked the outside when Teri wasn't home. But he called and gave an estimate of $2,800.00. He said he'd "sleeve" the pipe, whatever that means, and the cost would include removing and replacing the fence, as well as re-sodding the lawn. Teri liked that, and wants to go with him.
The last guy estimated $3,900.00, plus another $550.00 if they ended up having to excavate the cellar and replace the section of pipe right through the foundation as well. They'd replace the WHOLE pipe, all the way down to the sidewalk. But they're more than a thousand dollars higher than anyone else. We won't go with them.
So now we're torn between the two plumbers at $2,800.00. Teri likes the new one; I'm concerned because we don't know him, and there are some unknowns. I'm going to look them up online, and in the Better Business Bureau, just to see if there have been any complaints. I realize that removing the fence and restoring the lawn are relatively minor things; it wouldn't cost more than $100 or so to do that, and we could probably do it all ourselves.
I should explain that the pipe is actually cast iron at the point at which it exits the foundation, and for perhaps five feet out from the house. That's the part which has broken. The clay pipe is absolutely sound. But the cast iron pipe is actually going through our foundation, which is stone. Whoever replaces the pipe will try to remove as much as possible from outside, but it's not clear how much they'll be able to do; and if disaster strikes, they'd have to jackhammer inside the basement in order to get at the cast iron pipe from both sides, and remove it completely.
I'm on the fence. But that includes my inclination to oblige Teri. So I'm just not sure what to do. It would be convenient to have the incidental work done for us, and I put a lot of weight on what Teri wants, but we know the other guys do decent work and they know the pipe from inside the basement. So it's a really tough call.
Every homeowner is solely responsible for the drain line all the way from their house to the sewer itself - normally, in the middle of the street.
That means that if the drain line breaks under the street, the homeowner must pay to have the street excavated. They must also pay off-duty police officers overtime pay to guard the hole, round the clock - and overtime pay is at least $50 per hour. They must pay to have the repairs made, and then they must pay to have the street (and sidewalk, if necessary) restored to its original condition.
The bill for all that is likely to be well over $10,000.00, and it could even run over $20,000.00. And Allstate, at least, won't pay a dime. Allstate sucks!
Now fortunately, I watched as they scoped our drain line all the way down to (and into) the sewer. It's absolutely fine, except for maybe five feet from the house. So we should be okay. But our pipe is clay - vibrations can cause cracks, allowing roots to grow in. In other words, old pipe can definitely break. And I don't know about other citizens, but $20,000.00 would wipe us out. I don't expect that to happen to us - that would be just too ridiculous, after everything else that's happened, and our pipe was, in the words of the plumber "beautiful" - but it's amazing that there's this relatively unknown Sword of Damocles hanging over the head of so many unaware people.
Interestingly enough, there's only one town in all of Rhode Island that repairs drain lines which are on city property (i.e. under the sidewalk or street), and that's Pawtucket. I don't know why. I also don't know how the issue is covered in other states. But damn, it's a scary thing.
As for the job itself, we've now gotten four quotes. The original quote was by the guys who handled our old main drain trap - holy cow, I don't seem to have written about that! Wait - I wrote about it in an old issue of Chatter on my RQ site. Suffice it to say that two months after we moved into the house, we had to have the basement jackhammered up. The guys who did it did a decent job.
They're the ones who scoped the line this time, and they gave us an estimate of $2,800.00. We'd have to remove the front yard fence ourselves, or they'd charge us to do it. The advantage they have is that we know they're competent and honest, and they've already worked on the same pipe from the inside of the house.
Another plumber gave us an estimate of $2,300.00. But Teri didn't like him; he wouldn't look her in the eye (I was at work when he came by to make the estimate). Teri's a good judge of character, so that's good enough for me.
Plumber #3 didn't come inside the house; he checked the outside when Teri wasn't home. But he called and gave an estimate of $2,800.00. He said he'd "sleeve" the pipe, whatever that means, and the cost would include removing and replacing the fence, as well as re-sodding the lawn. Teri liked that, and wants to go with him.
The last guy estimated $3,900.00, plus another $550.00 if they ended up having to excavate the cellar and replace the section of pipe right through the foundation as well. They'd replace the WHOLE pipe, all the way down to the sidewalk. But they're more than a thousand dollars higher than anyone else. We won't go with them.
So now we're torn between the two plumbers at $2,800.00. Teri likes the new one; I'm concerned because we don't know him, and there are some unknowns. I'm going to look them up online, and in the Better Business Bureau, just to see if there have been any complaints. I realize that removing the fence and restoring the lawn are relatively minor things; it wouldn't cost more than $100 or so to do that, and we could probably do it all ourselves.
I should explain that the pipe is actually cast iron at the point at which it exits the foundation, and for perhaps five feet out from the house. That's the part which has broken. The clay pipe is absolutely sound. But the cast iron pipe is actually going through our foundation, which is stone. Whoever replaces the pipe will try to remove as much as possible from outside, but it's not clear how much they'll be able to do; and if disaster strikes, they'd have to jackhammer inside the basement in order to get at the cast iron pipe from both sides, and remove it completely.
I'm on the fence. But that includes my inclination to oblige Teri. So I'm just not sure what to do. It would be convenient to have the incidental work done for us, and I put a lot of weight on what Teri wants, but we know the other guys do decent work and they know the pipe from inside the basement. So it's a really tough call.
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Our first contractor damaged our sewer line, which is why he was eventually fired, after he cleaned up the mess and paid out the nearly $10k in costs for a plumber to do the repairs.
MY sister also went thru this out in Waltham a few years ago, they had to replace the entire pipe from basement to street connection in her case.
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