Ruh-Roh.....

So - Friday morning Dale was off work, ready to get a lot accomplished on the bathroom.  I got up and put a load of laundry in the washer, and 15 minutes later, Dale comes out to the kitchen, asking, "Did you hear that gurgling in the toilet?"  No.....but when we go back to the bathroom, all the drains are full of water - sewer water.  Yikes.  That means there's a blockage somewhere.  I have to go to work, but instead of getting going on the bathroom, Dale goes out and rents a snake to clear out the main line.  But he runs into something....so we call a plumber (our last resort).  He comes out right away, and says it will be $160 to clean out the line.  Which is not great, but oh well, what can you do.  He hauls in his equipment and 1 hour later, he's got a broken cable and delivers us the bad news:  We have serious roots, and they are going to have to dig up the  main line.  Estimate:  $900.

 This is halfway done on Saturday. 


The roots are red because they've sucked the color from the clay pipe.  They were completely blocking the line. 


After they got this first blockage cleared, they had to call in a guy with a hydrojet to clear out the rest of the line all the way to the street.  

So here are the brand new pipes and clean-out all ready to be reburied into the yard.


Dale had to hang out with the plumbers all day and couldn't get any work done on the bathroom. So - unexpected delay, unexpected cost, and we'll likely have to get something done in the next year or so about the rest of the pipes, because there are a lot of roots and this will probably reoccur -- but for now, we're good to go -- but the bathroom is still further away from getting completed!