The plumbing post

Last ... well, let's say last fall - water started backing up out of the floor drain every time I did laundry.

I solved it by wearing shoes.

Well, maybe "solved" isn't really the word.

In December, I finally called a plumber, but things didn't fall into place until January.  He came, and realized he needed a bigger cable to snake the pipe, so he had to come back again.

He arrived again near the end of January and snaked the pipe, but it didn't work.  He said that it felt like the pipe narrowed outside of the house and I should call the city.

I didn't.

You see, the city would need access to the main clean-out pipe, and the people who'd owned the house before me put a handy wall in front of the clean-out pipe.  The wall needed to be modified, and I had camp, and then I was away, and then a friend was in town, and I just didn't have time to deal with it.

I continued wearing shoes, as that was a much easier solution.

As I mentioned, I cut a hole in the wall on the weekend, so Monday I called the city. 

They asked if I was going to be home for the next three hours. I said no, and they said I needed to call when I was going to be home for 3 hours - and I could call after hours, because they work then.

Yesterday, I got home from work by 5 and called, and they suggested I call back today because it wasn't an emergency. (It wasn't an emergency on Monday, either.)  She gave me the extension of the right department so I didn't have to call the general line.  I don't blame the woman I talked to yesterday - I was totally fine with calling back, but it would have been nice to get better information the first time.

This morning, I called the extension she gave me at 7:30, because that's when she had told me they opened. They called back at 9:45. On the bright side, they had someone here by noon.

He experimented and determined that the issue wasn't outside of the house - it was inside.

Despite the going in circles, this was good news - digging up a pipe sounds expensive. Before he left, he explained what kind of equipment was needed to fix this - basically, it's a snake with a blade on the end.

(Um, plumbing snake, not a live snake. That would be both scary and ineffective.)

I emailed plumber #1 and he said he didn't have the right equipment. He suggested plumber #2. I called plumber #2. He arrived at 5:45 and left at 6:45.

It's fixed.

I'm totally doing laundry in my socks this weekend.