A real drain

We were supposed to go camping last weekend.

Instead we decided to stay home and tackle a problem we've had for a while now. As I alluded to in my last post, we have a slow drain. It doesn't bother us most of the time. In fact, now that we have a high efficiency washer it bothers us less. But once every two weeks our water conditioner cycles and the flood that ensues in our utility/craft/cat room reminds us that indeed we have a problem.

Mark has been managing the situation by bailing water every two weeks. He sets the kitchen timer and every four to seven minutes checks the back-up level and just as the water is about to cascade over the edge of the utility sink the bailing begins.

We hired our friends at Roto Rooter to take a look at our system. That was painful, by the way. Two do-it-yourselfers hiring someone to fix a problem seems like a sell-out. Anyway, our Roto Rooter friend showed up Thursday morning and after listening to our tale of woe assured us he sees this all the time. So he snakes the line. The first time he pulls up a little hair and a few tree roots. The next time nothing. And the third time, nothing. He informs us this isn't good.

He calls in a troubleshooter who spends an hour more trying to determine why nothing is coming out. So for $150 we learned that indeed we do have a problem. The fellows speculated it was either a really big root or a collapsed pipe.

Mark decides that if we had better access to the drain line we might find something. So I agree to let him take up two tiles.
And cut a hole in the wall.
No obvious cause was revealed so our troubleshooter came back with his handy snake cam. He informed us we have back-to-back 90 degree turns in our plumbing. And our line does not connect to the septic tank like we thought. Rather it drains, or doesn't as the case may be, into what he guesses is a french drain in the backyard. He was even so kind as to locate said drain and approximate its depth at four to five feet underground.

Mark spent Saturday digging a hole in the backyard. He found part of the drain box but the weather turned sour and he was forced to stop his dig.

So now I have two missing tiles, a six foot hole in the wall of my cozy entry/library, a four foot hole in the backyard, a slow drain and an absent husband. He learned late Saturday that he'd be spending his work week in Arizona.
The silver lining...we've always planned to put a bathroom in using the existing plumbing in the laundry room. Thank goodness we had the drain looked into before we tackled that project. Yuck!

Next time we have a choice between home repair and camping, I think we'll go camping.