I’ve struggled with the title of this blog for days. I considered and rejected several. One More Shi!!y Tale, Keep on Flushin, Ain’t No Plunger Big Enough, and You Can’t Force a Six Inch Poop Down a Four Inch Hole were all considered but rejected. The Final Flush? is what I hope is the swan song to our plumbing issues. The septic system backed up again!
If you’ve been reading my blog since last summer, you know that we have had two major floods in our house within the last year. The most recent occurred in late April before we returned home from Florida. (The hippies were living in our house.) Our septic system clogged, backed-up, and overflowed. We had clean-up and repair damages in excess of $5,000 after a $14,500 restoration project that we completed last October. Insurance helped with the first claim but the second one is on us. (I was told that my insurance premiums would double with another claim so close to the first.)
We had visitors last week. Michael was in from California for a week, and my sister-in-law came for an overnight visit to see him. They both arrived the evening of June 3rd. The final repairs from the April flood damage had been completed May 24th.
As Kathy was departing on the morning of the 4th, like all well planned travelers, she took one last stop in our newly re-renovated bathroom. She flushed, and faster than you can say “Holy Poop!”, the shower floor filled with brown water. Enough said.
We ceased all usage of the plumbing in our house immediately. I called the clean-out guy who had opened our clogged line in April. He quickly informed me that our thirty-day guarantee had expired. The fact that we hadn’t used the system until May 24th fell on deaf ears. (We couldn’t use it because of the most recent flooding.)
“Look, it’s backed up and I need it open. When can you get here?”
He came later that afternoon. When he opened the line in April, he pulled the toilet and ran his clean-out tools from the house to the tank. He didn’t want to pull the toilet in our brand spanking new (for the second time) bathroom, so he pulled the septic tank lid, and tried to run the line from the tank to the toilet. He worked for about an hour and a half and failed.
As he worked we explored a series of possible scenarios if the line was no longer going to be serviceable. (1) You might try water blasting. (2) You may be able to run a sleeve inside the existing line. (3) You may have to tear up the entire concrete floor and dig a tunnel for a new PVC line. (4) Running a camera through the line should provide more insight.
He had other calls to make that afternoon and said he would return in the morning. He did. This time he pulled the toilet and ran his equipment from the toilet to the tank. He only got a trickle of water (his words) to run. As he pulled the equipment to start a second run at it, the line opened up. Whatever was causing the blockage cleared.
I had decided that no matter what the day’s outcome might be, I was going to hire a camera crew to run through the line to make sure that we were good to go. My line opener knew a camera guy that might be able to come “tomorrow”, and “if not tomorrow, he can be here next Tuesday for sure”. Then he said, “I wouldn’t use any of the plumbing until he runs the camera.”
As soon as I told him to “get the camera crew here as soon as possible”, we started looking for a camera crew of our own. We found one that could be at the house by 4:30.
The camera crew arrived as promised. They explained the process. They had a camera on the end of a cable that would be fed into the sewer line. “It will show us how the line looks.”
We briefly discussed worst case scenarios. If the line was bad enough, we could try water blasting it. “Water blasting costs about $850.00.”
Running the camera was $216.00. I said, “Let’s go and see what we’ve got.”
It took longer to get the equipment out of the truck than it did to run the camera. In fact, it took longer to put down a protective tarp. About a minute after he started feeding the line, he said, “Looks good. You are clear into the septic tank.”
I stepped forward and watched the monitor as he withdrew the camera. He ran it back again and explained what I was seeing. “You’ve got a clear shot. You shouldn’t have any more problems.”
I speculated that the clean-out guy “probably didn’t get the line clear the first time”.
“You might be right, but we’ll never know for sure. It’s clear now though.”
I asked them to reset the toilet, which they did, and were on their way. We’ve been using it for the past ten days without incident.
Since they left, I’ve decided to raise white rats or gerbils. I’m investigating which of the two is more nimble. I’m going to send one down the septic line with a Go-Pro camera strapped to his head when we return from Florida next spring to make sure that the line is clear and we’re still good to go. (Pun intended.)