You want to be disgusted, appalled, and fascinated?

Other than a hearse, this is the last vehicle you want
to see in your driveway.

Read my blog, or call Mr, Rooter to clean out your sewer. It all started a couple days after we moved in. I took a shower before work and headed into the office. About an hour later, Cindy called with the bad news that we have water in the basement. I came back home and became pretty sure that water was seeping though the concrete from the main sewer pipe. We called Mr. Rooter and  made an appointment for the next day. The technician showed up the following morning and confirmed that the pipe was blocked. While running the snake down the pipe he commented that there was a significant sludge build up, perhaps complicated by paint, likely dumped down the drain by someone working for the previous owner. However, the main problem was a ball of root removed from the pipe by the snake. After that, we flushed toilets and ran water clearing the sludge. It looked like we were all good. HA!

Root mass and tired plumber.

Almost exactly a week later, after  a shower, the problem returned. So did Mr. Rooter. Well, after dire warnings from the technician that this could be any of several expensive issues, he ran the snake into the pipe again. More sludge was found along with other unmentionables that he dragged back from the sewer main in the street. Then on what was to be his last try he latched on the something big. Pulling the item back to the clean out damaged the snake and lodged the item in the pipe. Well, I know you are dying to know what was lodged in our sewer so I won't keep you in suspense any longer. A massive root ball, likely from the sewer main, was clogging our pipe's connection to the system. Now the problem remained of removing the massive root ball out of our clean out, where it was wedged. The poor technician pulled, cut, and ravaged his knuckles on the inside of the cast iron pipe but could not remove it. He finally decided to go back to the shop and return with a new blade and for his snake and proceeded to cut at the root mass pulling out chunks at a time. He finally was able to get the last THREE FEET of it out in one piece (see photo). Since then, we've had no sewer issues, fingers remain crossed.

There HAVE been other plumbing problems. I continue to try to solve a leak in the drain of the half bath related to the stopper, and there is a mystery leak under the kitchen sink. Also, at some point I need to install hot and cold water plumbing to the clothes washer, They were removed at some point for unknown reasons. Why they had a new washer and no water is a real mystery.

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