Our special Sunday dinner for our kids, who went back to school today, was rudely interrupted by a plumbing nightmare. It started with a peach pit in the garbage disposal; or at least that's how we noticed that there was a problem. We fished the peach pit out but then quickly noticed that we had a clogged sink drain - a very common problem I thought. Admittedly, I don't do plumbing. I despise plumbing jobs; they are dirty, yucky, smelly and did I mention dirty and smelly?
Luckily, my father-in-law, who was over for dinner, quickly assessed the situation and took over. We started with Drano - you know, the burning acid-like liquid that you poor down the drain and all your problems are supposedly solved in 10 minutes? After 10 minutes, the Drano proved to be completely useless except for ruining the finish on my faucet and sink.
He next asked for a plumber's snake to manually insert into the pipes and grind up the clog. As previously mentioned, I don't do plumbing and do not own a snake, mostly because when you get to the point that you need a snake, that's not a job I want to be doing. Fortunately, I do have a lot of wire hangers and we were able to fashion a makeshift snake. We removed the P-Trap under the sink and began probing with our hanger contraption. This also proved to be pointless except for now I think I have part of a wire hanger lodged in my piping behind my sink which should lead to many years of plumbing nightmares.
Next, he asked for a plunger; luckily I had one. He began plunging the sink like a man possessed - it was as if he were performing CPR on a dying person. A few times, just for fun, I yelled, "Clear!" He wasn't as amused as I had anticipated; the aforementioned Drano was eating into his skin and was permanently removing all of his fingerprints. It might have also ruined his Rolex, but I am not sure.
After 20 minutes of chest compressions (sink plunging), we decided to call in the big guns. I don't call Pablo lightly, only when I am in dire need. A few years ago, I called Pablo to come and fix a leaky toilet, something he thought I could do myself, and he made an entire Relief Society object lesson out of the experience. He used my lack of handiness against me and I still hear about that story from several ladies in our ward. They laugh and have a real good time at my expense. So, I try to never call Pablo unless there is a real emergency, such as removing a live chirping bird from my chimney. Pablo is quite handy in such emergencies.
Pablo came right over, all decked out in his plumbing gear and fully prepared with several different types of plumbing snakes. It made me wonder if there is a handiness gene that might have skipped a generation. Anyway, after trying unsuccessfully with the snakes, we removed the trap on the back of the house to get better access to the pipes. I finally learned last night what that trap is for. Pablo decided in a last ditch effort to insert the hose into the trap and seal all of the other exits for the water to escape. This was done in an effort to create pressure in the pipes and force the clog down into the sewer pipes. Seemed like a solid idea.
After a couple of minutes, Pablo noticed that there was water seeping up through the carpet next to the back wall in our family room. It soaked a lot of our carpet and our carpet pads. Pablo informed me that I must have a broken pipe under my foundation and all of the water that we were shooting into the pipes was coming up through cracks in the foundation. Wonderful. So much for Pablo being handy. After spending an hour with my ShopVac sucking the water out of my carpet and carpet pad, Pablo went home, telling me that I had a serious problem.
I decided to call a plumber. Long story made short, my friend the plumber came over this morning. He was there for no more than 10 minutes. He inserted an electric snake into the trap and about 35 feet into my pipes, he found the clog. (I wonder how many wire hangers I would have had to twist together to reach that clog.) He informed me that I do not in fact have a leak under my foundation, a fact for which I am quite grateful. He took my check for $106, patted me on the head and told me to leave the professional jobs to the professionals.
Today, I am most thankful for plumbers.
2 comments:
Very entertaining story but I think this post would have been greatly enhanced by adding a few pictures. While I think you are a very clever writer, seeing a picture of Jim's face doing CPR on your sink or the look of shear horror on Michelle's face when water started leaking through the carpet would have been classic! Glad everything turned out OK though.
I agree, in fact, I told Jim last night I wish I would have had the foresight to bust out the video camera - it was a classic moment. However, no one was really in the video camera mood at the time. It was a rather dark moment in our home. Jim's face would have been classic. I still remember the look on Michelle's face as she came around the corner and we had the carpet ripped up with the Shopvac sucking out water. Not a great moment.
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