Disaster threatens, again

[bobquasit]

A large leak developed in our basement yesterday, in the bathroom area around the toilet. Fortunately the water didn't spread, and my books are on the opposite side of the cellar, but we were pretty concerned.

This morning Teri called a plumber, and he's at the house right now. Apparently once again there's a block in the main drain line, somewhere between the house and the street.

It could be a root has grown into the line, which would cost a few hundred dollars to deal with. We could deal with that.

Or, it could be that the line has for some reason collapsed, in which case we could be looking at anywhere from $2,000.00 to $20,000.00 or more to repair it - which could mean bankruptcy for us. I'm trying to think positively, but it's hard waiting for the phone call from Teri.

Comments

[klyfix.livejournal.com]

Dang.

I know that old plumbing does break or collapse on occasion; when I lived
in Hot Springs SD some turn of the century (19th to 20th at that time) main
water pipes burst just 'cause of age and I think 'cause of materials used
(I seem to recall clay pipes or something).

Stuff like that, the "infrastructure" of civilization, is something we don't
think about until it goes wrong. But our society is filled with things that
were contructed years ago and then often are neglected until something
catastrophic happens.

Hopefully it's just a root.

[unquietsoul5.livejournal.com]

Best wishes on getting it fixed economically. I know you've been thru this before and I know what it's like (having had our sewer line collapse due to contractor incompetence last winter).

WHEW!

[bobquasit.livejournal.com]

Yes, it was just a root. Or rather, roots. And a bunch of baby wipes, which got tangled in the roots.

Just FYI, I don't flush baby wipes.

Anyway, it was fixed for under $200.

[bobquasit.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I can't shake the feeling that that goddamned line will collapse before we manage to sell the house and move to somewhere decent. Pure superstition, of couse.

Hey, at least we dodged the bullet this time!

Collapse?

[bobquasit.livejournal.com]

I didn't realize that you went through the same thing! Did you have to have the street jackhammered up? Did the contractor pay, or did you have to sue him?

[klyfix.livejournal.com]

Hey, maybe Woonsocket will become Yuppified and Stylish and some rich couple
will buy your house for half a million so that they can build their mansion. :)

(Inspired by seeing a headline someplace online about this whole thing of
tearing down perfectly good houses and building mansions.

Re: Collapse?

[unquietsoul5.livejournal.com]

It collapsed from the trap inward, so we didn't need the street work, but did end up with raw sewage in the basement. It was this incident with the contractor that caused us to fire him.

Basically he had decided to cut corners and red tape and hook his temporary pumps (to pump water from the water table and run off) into the sewage line without going thru the permit process etc. Of course, he ended up with silt in the line, which clogged the street trap. Then he tried to have Roter Rooter come in and snake it, which collapsed the pipe.

Our cost from all this was about 2k in all for the work and cleanup. We spent 4 days in the luxurious MIT hotel (a very nice small hotel, the first in the area with in-room internet service, etc.) coming back once a day to take care of the cat etc. (Between this and meals spent out etc another $750 or so in costs... lucky for us it was a dead time for the hotel and rates were low).

No we didn't get the contractor to pay squat. And the cost consideration in regards to a lawsuit made it too expensive. If we had entered into a suit the entire construction project would have been halted for MONTHS, and our chances of finding a contractor or crew would have been zilch. The construction industry is very insular in New England, and once you get into a lawsuit you can kiss your chances of finding someone local to finish the work goodbye. My sister ran into that with her house, because she did get into a lawsuit, and had to hire out of state folks to finish the work.

Re: WHEW!

[unquietsoul5.livejournal.com]

Glad to hear that the problem was easily fixed, and relatively inexpensive in comparison to the last time.

Re: Collapse?

[bobquasit.livejournal.com]

I think I'd have gone completely berserk if I'd been in your shoes.

The contractor community sounds like what my older relatives use to tell me about doctors - that all doctors shared a secret list of people who sued them for malpractice, and that those people could never get medical care again. That's why my grandmother never took action against the doctor who overprescribed a medication for her. The overdoseage gave her Parkinson's disease, which eventually contributed to her death.