Appreciating Basic Necessities

You never really know what you'll miss until it's gone - or in our case compromised. And that would be the Waste Pipe from our house!

It started a couple of weeks ago -- the washing machine would be running and my son would take one of his 3 showers for the day. I'd go into the basement shortly after and find water on the floor. One day I actually caught it coming out of the discharge pipe for the washing machine. No problem, just don't wash clothes when someone's taking a shower we thought. Until the day I went down there and found water on the floor and I hadn't been washing clothes. Time to call the plumber.

Call Roto-Rooter he said. We did. He didn't find a problem and we couldn't get the water to back up. Looking at the pipe in the basement we found a leak in it which didn't point to much, only that it was time to update those pipes from cast iron to new and improved plastic. Done.

BUT! They discovered water is still backing up. Time to call in the plumbers Roto-Rooter man. He came Friday night, worked through some rough areas and came back Saturday with a longer snake and worked through some more. Ok, cool. But oops, when husband and plumber are trying to put the pipes back together, they discover the pipe IN THE FOUNDATION is broken. Now we have to dig up the yard and replace the pipe from there to there (I still don't understand the logistics) to tie back into the pipe leading to the street. All I know is it's being re-routed because it takes a few unnecessary jogs and this way we don't have to tear up our deck!

Today the wind is howling and we're expecting alot of rain but hopefully those men doing the digging are hardy souls and we will be back with on track by tomorrow. In the meantime we have a little system worked out for grey water, my neighbor's are in Florida for the extreme toilet usage, we put about $25 into the laundromat machines yesterday morning so the clothes are clean and our son went back to college yesterday so he can take as many showers as he'd like.

And the cost? who cares as long as my basic needs are met once again.