House Colectomy

Replacing the entire sewer line is no small task. Sitting around talking about it, thinking about it, even drawing it out seems like a nice Sunday afternoon exercise. Doing it is messy and hard. I'm glad I hired all of it out.

On the other hand, giving my house the equivalent of a colectomy is not making me happy. My basement is muddy with clay and concrete dust. My backyard is destroyed. My basement windows and back entryway are filthy. My brick patio is mostly removed. My limestone path is somewhere under several inches of dirt. My house stinks like a combination of diesel exhaust (used to power the concrete saw) and spray paint (used to mark the concrete for where it was cut). **sigh**

When we got home last night, I had to see what had been accomplished in 8 hours. In that time the concrete cutters cut five channels throughout the house, all interconnected, and removed the concrete to be carted to who-knows-where.

(The floor ended up being six to eight inches thick, rather than the standard two to three. I wasn't surprised. Everything else in the house seems to have been over-engineered too. The concrete guys had to call in two extra guys just to help them haul out the concrete.)

A really much-too-large-for-my-tastes digger dug out 50 feet of the existing exterior sewer line to a depth of five or six feet. The old clay tile was replaced with PVC plastic. Fortunately, the plumbers were able to slip the PVC pipe into the last 20 or so feet of the clay tile, so there was no need to dig up the entire 75' length.

(Digging out the old sewer line next to the house had to have taken quite a level of finesse. Its impressive that someone is able to maneuver a large bucket that easily.)

The pipe was fed under the house foundation and reconnected to the old pipe within the house, allowing us to use the toilet for the night. In my book that's a fair amount of work.

Today they will finish plumbing all interior drain work. Wednesday is cementing over the trenches. Thursday is connecting all the sinks and securing any loose plumbing lines.

There are a lot of things that I'm not happy about at the moment, but until I speak to the plumber today who is coordinating all of this, I won't elaborate about them. After all, if he fixes all the problems, then it just proves that I'm being up tight. And if he doesn't, it'll be here, in writing.

And thank you to Ms. Huis who as been very understanding around her grumpy husband.