So about the old Labor Daybor...
Posted: Wed Sep 12, 2012 1:27 am
Greetings yinz guys!
So as you're probably aware, I haven't been on recently. (Don't worry I'll be here for MoP, more about that below.) Other than preparing for MoP I've been busy keeping myself... well busy, enjoying summer and reading some computing books. The end of August approached and soon the ole Labor Daybor came upon us.
To say that it was an interesting day would be an understatement.
It all started when I heard a bubbling, splashing noise coming from the direction of the bathroom in the cellar. To my surprise it was coming from the toilet bowl. To my even further surprise a gusher was rising 1 foot in the air from the toilet!
After shutting the water off, I called my father about what was going on and we figured that the pipes must have gotten something in them from the neighborhood and probably needed a good cleaning. So we got ourselves a small, 25 foot augur line and proceeded to the open drain lid outside the house. After feeding the line through completely and only really hitting a little bit of blockage we were confident the problem wasn't outside the house (and wouldn't have to tear up the yard and driveway at our expense). We then headed to the drains inside the garage and laundry room. However, the line in the garage was too plugged up to augur, and by the time we got to the laundry room the augur was failing; bending and kinking up on us as we tried to rotate the handle on it.
So with reluctance, we decided it was time to call a plumber. Luckily, we got a very friendly (and competent!) plumber who went over what happened with his own augur and camera. After checking the outside line, we headed back in the garage and he tried to augur the line there. Amazingly, the pipe was so plugged up his augur's blade was getting chewed up. The plumber said just how plugged up it was after looking at it with his camera and that the pipe would have to come out. We agreed and with good credit in hand, had it dug up the same night.
However the hole went from this:
To this: http://youtu.be/buaNACUe3Fw
That's more than 65 feet going from the garage, to the gameroom, to the laundry room and the bathroom.
The bill also went from about $3800 to a whopping $11,000+!
Needless to say this was quite a shock (especially to my wallet!). However what disheartened me the most was what happened during the digging.
You see, because all the houses in the neighborhood are built upon mines, the houses were built like bunkers. The floors are heavily cemented with rebar about every 6 inches, making it extremely difficult to dig up the pipe and replace it. As such, they had to use a pneumatic jackhammer to dig through everything. Rock dust from all the jackhammering formed a thick cloud throughout the basement and although they had sheets covering around the area being worked on, a ton of it seeped through and covered everything in that dust...
Which includes my computer:
Suffice it to say, it's a pretty bad idea to turn it on, especially since there's lye in the cement which is quite bad for the components. (I'm actually using my mother's laptop now to write this.) Hopefully, along with what the insurance should pay for the damage to the pipe/floor, we can add everything that was damaged/ruined by the dust and jackhammering to the claim, including my computer.
All in all though, they're doing a splendid job and my hats off to the plumbers who worked on it. (Especially since it was during a holiday weekend.) They just didn't anticipate the house being built like a bomb shelter and kicking all that dust up.
I'll also be “haunting” the forums whenever I can get my hands on a computer so feel free to hit me up if you need me.
This is one Human Distraction™ (read: Tank) that will be sure to be here come MoP!
So as you're probably aware, I haven't been on recently. (Don't worry I'll be here for MoP, more about that below.) Other than preparing for MoP I've been busy keeping myself... well busy, enjoying summer and reading some computing books. The end of August approached and soon the ole Labor Daybor came upon us.
To say that it was an interesting day would be an understatement.
It all started when I heard a bubbling, splashing noise coming from the direction of the bathroom in the cellar. To my surprise it was coming from the toilet bowl. To my even further surprise a gusher was rising 1 foot in the air from the toilet!
After shutting the water off, I called my father about what was going on and we figured that the pipes must have gotten something in them from the neighborhood and probably needed a good cleaning. So we got ourselves a small, 25 foot augur line and proceeded to the open drain lid outside the house. After feeding the line through completely and only really hitting a little bit of blockage we were confident the problem wasn't outside the house (and wouldn't have to tear up the yard and driveway at our expense). We then headed to the drains inside the garage and laundry room. However, the line in the garage was too plugged up to augur, and by the time we got to the laundry room the augur was failing; bending and kinking up on us as we tried to rotate the handle on it.
So with reluctance, we decided it was time to call a plumber. Luckily, we got a very friendly (and competent!) plumber who went over what happened with his own augur and camera. After checking the outside line, we headed back in the garage and he tried to augur the line there. Amazingly, the pipe was so plugged up his augur's blade was getting chewed up. The plumber said just how plugged up it was after looking at it with his camera and that the pipe would have to come out. We agreed and with good credit in hand, had it dug up the same night.
However the hole went from this:
To this: http://youtu.be/buaNACUe3Fw
That's more than 65 feet going from the garage, to the gameroom, to the laundry room and the bathroom.
The bill also went from about $3800 to a whopping $11,000+!
Needless to say this was quite a shock (especially to my wallet!). However what disheartened me the most was what happened during the digging.
You see, because all the houses in the neighborhood are built upon mines, the houses were built like bunkers. The floors are heavily cemented with rebar about every 6 inches, making it extremely difficult to dig up the pipe and replace it. As such, they had to use a pneumatic jackhammer to dig through everything. Rock dust from all the jackhammering formed a thick cloud throughout the basement and although they had sheets covering around the area being worked on, a ton of it seeped through and covered everything in that dust...
Which includes my computer:
Suffice it to say, it's a pretty bad idea to turn it on, especially since there's lye in the cement which is quite bad for the components. (I'm actually using my mother's laptop now to write this.) Hopefully, along with what the insurance should pay for the damage to the pipe/floor, we can add everything that was damaged/ruined by the dust and jackhammering to the claim, including my computer.
All in all though, they're doing a splendid job and my hats off to the plumbers who worked on it. (Especially since it was during a holiday weekend.) They just didn't anticipate the house being built like a bomb shelter and kicking all that dust up.
I'll also be “haunting” the forums whenever I can get my hands on a computer so feel free to hit me up if you need me.
This is one Human Distraction™ (read: Tank) that will be sure to be here come MoP!
