A Week of Fail

[nekosensei]

Yesterday, I was doing a load of laundry when I heard the sound of water hitting floor. I went into the unfinished part of the basement and discovered that water was leaking out of one of the pipes below the ceiling. Later, doomsey came home and said that it was the drain pipe underneath the toilet that was overflowing. We called a plumber who came out to look at the problem today. The verdict: we have tree roots in our sewer line...a lot of them. The plumber also noticed that there was a dip in said line as well. He thinks that we're going to have to replace the line. So...it looks like we have a very expensive problem on our hands. It's going to cost us anywhere from $3,500 to $6,000 to fix. If we opt to have the pipe dug up (and not have them build a new pipe inside of the old one), we're going to lose some of our landscaping. We'll definitely lose half of the patio, and we might lose one of trees in back as well.

Crap.

Comments

[g0shawk.livejournal.com]

Whoa, that stinks. :( *hugs*

[ftemery.livejournal.com]

Crap it is! It's always such a shock when something blows like that.

[spiralflames.livejournal.com]

bummer. when you get this fixed? pay to have the main line reamed out once a year whether it needs to be or not. i've had to have it done- the yard dug up- TWICE now. arrgh.

[nick-101.livejournal.com]

Ouch. Sorry about your plumbing problem. :(

[angharad76.livejournal.com]

Get a second opinion.

We had a plumber tell us about our tree-root problem and how we'd need to have our yard ripped up for $3000.

We got a second opinion, and the second plumber replaced a single pipe inside the house for $75.

That was more than fifteen years ago--the problem hasn't recurred since.

We later learned that the "tree-root" stuff is one of the biggest scams in the business. It may be legitimate in your case, but it might be worthwhile to check it out before shelling out three grand.

[doomsey.livejournal.com]

The roots are there - saw them with my own eyes. But, yes, we're going to get someone else out to look at it (this time with a camera) before we agree to have them reline or replace the pipe.

In any event, you keep saying you want to recommend a plumber. Feel free to do so. :)

[fuzzyscribble.livejournal.com]

Get a second opinion. I second the second opinion.

May I recommend:

Gilchrist-Traynor Plumbing & Piping 641 Madison St Oak Park, IL 708-386-1311

[laurainlimbo.livejournal.com]

wow I'm sorry to hear that. I hope you can take care of it soon.

[forestdruid.livejournal.com]

My parents had the same thing happen when I was a baby - and several other times after that. There used to be a beautiful willow tree in the yard of the old house... so much for that. Could they simply root the pipes (i.e. go in with an industrial-grade, bladed drain snake)? Yearly doses of Root-X (yes its bad for the earth) also seemed to help.

Sorry, Dan.

[limuh.livejournal.com]

Awww, man, that bites :( Hope it turns out it's all lies and in fact a ten buck fix, or at least that it's all as cheap and nondestructive as possible. Damn plumbing.