The Pit of Despair!!!
Jul. 26th, 2017 09:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
indigo_rose99I scanned back over my posts in the last few months and evidently I only briefly mentioned the Pit of Despair.Yes, it is a huge pit. In the middle of my living room.
Since we moved in, we have had problems with the toilet next to my office. It has persistently backed up. And I don't mean at the toilet. It has backed in the line. And the line is connected to both the shower and the toilet, which... Ok, I'm mostly going to leave those consequences to your imagination, but I did a LOT of cleaning with bleach wipes. Ugh.
Thinking it was the toilet, T purchased an expensive Toto toilet and asked the installer to bring a really fancy camera on a line to check the full line. That was a chunk of money. He discovered that there were two "bellies" in the line from our toilet that will accumulate solids, no matter how careful we are. He cleared the line but was very careful to state that with normal use our blockage would only reoccur.
So we contacted the builder. This is a building problem. A building problem with the line in the foundation. While I was in California and France they tore a hole in the foundation in the middle of our living room and tried to straighten out the line (= The Pit of Despair). Before T joined me in France, they filled it in with concrete but did not tile over it.
T has been worried that while there is enough tile to retile the hole in the living room now, there is not enough tile to do it again in the future. Further, he was not convinced that the guys fully tested the line before they poured in the concrete.
I've been doing my best to "test" the toilet since I returned from France. TEST!! TEST To Extremes! It seemed to work fine.
So last night we had the plumbers come out with another long line and a camera. *bang head on desk* ....*bang head on desk some more* So the good news is that the pipe is straight, no bellies. The bad news is that with modern water pressure, modern toilets, modern pipes, all of our toilets are going to back up in the line (not at the toilet) on an evil thought. The plumbers strongly suggested using no toilet paper. They also flatly refused to talk directly to me (which I totally get).
I'm not sure how much of this is due to us being on a septic system, how much is due to modern building codes and materials. But we never had this problem in any of the houses I've lived in and clearly everyone involved blames me. I don't even know if quadruple flushing every time I walk by a toilet will help. Graar!
But the good news is that Saturday they plan to show up to retile the living room. We'll have the living room back! Probably with the extra bonus of a ton of dust, but I'm still looking forward to having it back.
Since we moved in, we have had problems with the toilet next to my office. It has persistently backed up. And I don't mean at the toilet. It has backed in the line. And the line is connected to both the shower and the toilet, which... Ok, I'm mostly going to leave those consequences to your imagination, but I did a LOT of cleaning with bleach wipes. Ugh.
Thinking it was the toilet, T purchased an expensive Toto toilet and asked the installer to bring a really fancy camera on a line to check the full line. That was a chunk of money. He discovered that there were two "bellies" in the line from our toilet that will accumulate solids, no matter how careful we are. He cleared the line but was very careful to state that with normal use our blockage would only reoccur.
So we contacted the builder. This is a building problem. A building problem with the line in the foundation. While I was in California and France they tore a hole in the foundation in the middle of our living room and tried to straighten out the line (= The Pit of Despair). Before T joined me in France, they filled it in with concrete but did not tile over it.
T has been worried that while there is enough tile to retile the hole in the living room now, there is not enough tile to do it again in the future. Further, he was not convinced that the guys fully tested the line before they poured in the concrete.
I've been doing my best to "test" the toilet since I returned from France. TEST!! TEST To Extremes! It seemed to work fine.
So last night we had the plumbers come out with another long line and a camera. *bang head on desk* ....*bang head on desk some more* So the good news is that the pipe is straight, no bellies. The bad news is that with modern water pressure, modern toilets, modern pipes, all of our toilets are going to back up in the line (not at the toilet) on an evil thought. The plumbers strongly suggested using no toilet paper. They also flatly refused to talk directly to me (which I totally get).
I'm not sure how much of this is due to us being on a septic system, how much is due to modern building codes and materials. But we never had this problem in any of the houses I've lived in and clearly everyone involved blames me. I don't even know if quadruple flushing every time I walk by a toilet will help. Graar!
But the good news is that Saturday they plan to show up to retile the living room. We'll have the living room back! Probably with the extra bonus of a ton of dust, but I'm still looking forward to having it back.
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Date: 2017-07-26 07:49 pm (UTC)WHAT!?! Is it because there isn't enough slope, enough water pressure, or what? Oh, I'd be ANGRY.
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Date: 2017-07-27 12:58 am (UTC)At this point I'm too stunned and horrified to be angry. Maybe by this weekend I'll work up to anger...
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Date: 2017-07-27 02:44 pm (UTC)I'm now flushing 3-5 times every time I walk in a bathroom. Even if we assume (falsely, since I work from home and T goes into an office) that I only do half of the toilet flushes in the house, this works out to greater water usage than most old toilets!
I'm totally in favor of water savings. But not if the approach actually uses more water in real life and requires multiple yearly plumber visits to clean out the line!
Ok, I think I'm working up to being angry about this.