Up until a few short weeks ago, we experienced little issues as homeowners. Life was peachy. And then there was that one Monday morning... (begin memory montage)
Climbing out of bed at 5am is always rough, but especially on a Monday after a show weekend (aka little sleep, lots of work). I trudged down to the basement where the dogs' kennels are to get them fed and taken out for the morning. And so began my awful morning....
Awful moment #1:
Little Harry decided to poop all over his kennel, which means that Harry also had poop all over himself. Oy! Little friend, why!? Begrudgingly, I carry him upstairs and give him a quick bath. Not too fond of baths, he spent most of the time trying to jump out, which resulted in me being doused with water as well. Dry the puppy. Drain the water. Poopy puppy problem solved.Awful moment #2:
As I'm ridding Harry's kennel of the wretched brown mess, I hear the toilet in the laundry room next door gurgle. I think, "Whaaaat is that?" Gurgle....gurgle....gurgle I approach the bathroom door and open it slowly, afraid of what I might see or smell. To my relief, it was just low on water, so the oh so clever me decided to flush it. Bad idea. Quickly the toilet filled with water and started pouring out onto the floor.Pause. Have you ever had one of those moments where you just watch something terrible happen, frozen, because you can't believe it's actually happening? That lasted about 5 seconds.
I start a mad dash upstairs to gather as many towels as I can manage in my short arms all the while shrieking to my sleeping husband: "Briiiiaaaan! Heeeelpppp! The toilet in the basement is overflowing everywhere!!!" I am no plumber, so this was no job for me to fix. Brian, with his mad plumbing skills, quickly thrusted the plunger into the water and got it to stop. I think to myself, "oh, ya, a plunger would have been a good idea..." oops. I decided to just stick with just cleaning up the water.
Awful moment #3:
As I go to get more liquid absorbing materials, I open the storage room door. Holy smokes! We have water coming out from our main drain and spreading across our storage room floor! PANIC MODE ENGAGED (again)! What is happening!?! Water. all over the floor. Luckily, it didn't get very far before we caught, so we aren't worried about water damage. It could have been much worse. Here's a quick break down of what happened:- Water messes happened.
- me: "Brian, I think we should call a plumber..."
- Brian: "naaaah, it's fine."
- Next morning, water. everywhere. again. but worse.
- Brian text's me at work: "I'm afraid the dog's are going to drown."
- Me (forgetting my husband is a bit dramatic) panics, leaves work and cleans up mess (that really wasn't all that bad)
- Me: "Brian, we should really call a plumber..."
- Brian calls the plumber. Plumber and Brian rip a hole in my wall (!!!) to access the main drain line.
- Plumber: "Well, folks, you have something wrong with a pipe about 25 feet into your main line."
- Brian and Katherine: "Ah crap." (no pun intended) We are thinking we have tree roots in our pipes, which would be very bad news.
- Another plumber comes out with a camera auger. We have a break in our pipe. Outside our house. In the ground. Get the picture?
- Brian and a friend (thanks, Dane!) rip out part of our front porch so they can dig to the pipe.
- Plumbers dig, replace the broken spot, ridiculous amounts of money spent, problem solved.
I currently have a hole in a wall in my basement, no porch, landscaping destroyed, and giant tread marks in the grass in front of my house. What I do not have is a broken pipe and lots of water problems. For this I am thankful.
Hole in the wall. Why in the world would you cover the main drain access with a wall?!
Goodbye porch (for now)
The hole. Ugh! It's gone now, but boy was that not fun.
