Backup Plans
Atlanta, GA
May 29, 2023
“Maybe it’s time for a townhouse.”
As another excavator created an expanding pit in our front yard, my wife’s comment was making a lot of sense.
A few years ago, we dug up the front of the house to regrade, place new pipes, and install French drains to stop a series of leaks into our basement.
Friday afternoon, water again found its way to our subterranean sanctuary. This time it came not thru exterior walls, but from within…and above.
That morning, I called our plumber when the first floor toilet wouldn’t flush and couldn’t be plunged.
He had no more luck clearing the clog than I did. He said that in all likelihood the sewer line was blocked, so we needed to call someone with stronger equipment to push the obstruction thru the pipe.
As the plumber was leaving, my son was in the shower. The water from the tub quickly made the plumber’s point. Unable to penetrate a blocked artery, the drainage retreated up the line and found release at the only point of possible escape: our inoperable toilet.
The overflow filtered thru the floor, raining liquid filth on books, chairs, dishes, and clothes haphazardly stored in the basement below.
The only relief was that the affected area is an unfinished section of the larger basement. The floor is concrete and no water reached the walls.
Most contaminated items will need to be chucked (I think my wife suspected this may have been a “false flag” to provide an excuse for me to get rid of old possessions we’d stored for years). But we seem to have dodged more extensive damage.
Or so we thought.
County workers came that night, and noticed our only sewer “clean-out” is at least thirty yards from the front of house. There should be one within a few feet, but whoever built our house apparently decided it wasn’t worth it.
The only part of the line county inspectors could see was the portion flowing toward the street. The pipe was clear, but mostly dry. Whatever blocked it was between the distant clean-out and the downstairs toilet.
Our domicile’s digestive tract was obviously a mess, so it was time to conduct a colonoscopy. But depending on the location of whatever obstructed the intestinal tract, that procedure mightn’t tell us what we need to know.
The next morning, another plumber showed up, and was also incredulous that there was no convenient clean-out.
“I don’t have cable long enough to inspect or clear this length of pipe,” he warned. “That’s why there should be a clean-out just outside the house. I’ll do what I can. Hopefully, the blockage isn’t too far for me to reach.”
The plumber removed the toilet and used a hundred-foot cable to extend a camera as far as it could go. When it got there, it saw a solid mass that was probably the culprit.
We expected that. Obviously, something was blocking the pipe, and we were relieved the camera was able to find it. What was disturbing was the pipe seemed to be ascending as it moved away from the house.
We live in a weird world. The last few years, we’ve imposed negative interest rates, discovered innumerable “genders”, and learned that a trace gas we all exhale has suddenly become a threat to our lives.
Now we notice that within the funhouse mirror to which we’re confined, water apparently flows uphill! At this revelation, my eyes widened and pulse raced.
Long ago, I was registered as a civil engineer. As I prepared for licensing exams and pursued that profession, I vaguely recall gravity’s tendency to pull running water toward the earth. Yet somehow, for twenty years, we’ve been living in a house from which effluence did the opposite.
How was that possible? I don’t know. But as Herb Stein said, “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.” Like continuing to print money to promote prosperity, it seemed the sorcery wasn’t working any more.
As with silly debt debates in DC this week, over the weekend our sewage system affirmed Herb Stein. It had reached the limit, was backing up, and making a mess. The only option was to dig it out, remove the hindrance, and fix the system.
Within a few hours, nearby utilities were located, and excavation began. As the hole expanded and mountains of Georgia clay piled on the lawn, we learned the pipe wasn’t quite where we thought, and was in worse shape than we’d imagined.
Under the surface we found an old clean-out. It had disconnected from the sewer, allowing surrounding soil to infiltrate the the line. That’s the blockage the camera had seen.
A few feet further, a large root from a nearby maple penetrated the pipe and had broken it to bits. This entire section needed to be replaced.
That was fine. The bigger problem was the uphill incline of the pipes we needed to fix.
For at least twenty feet, from the hole we’d dug to the connection with the clean-out, the pipe was rising as it proceeded from the house. Since it was already attached to the bottom of the clean-out, there was no room to drop it to improve the slope.
The only option was to dig the entire distance from the house to the street, and reset or replace the whole pipe on an appropriate decline. At that point, I began to seriously consider filling the hole, walking away, and abandoning the house.
We then realized that even a complete replacement wouldn’t work. The sewer line leaves the house just below the basement ceiling. Unless it were to come out of the first floor window, there’s no room to raise it sufficiently to adjust the slope.
As Marcel Duchamp said, “if there’s no solution, there’s no problem.” With all possible solutions dispensed, the problem vanished. Because we couldn’t correct the underlying issue, there was only one thing to do: fix the broken pipe, install a couple clean-outs, and refill the hole.
The new clean-outs provide access to the low point of the pipe. Sewage would sometimes settle in that extended belly. But I can occasionally run extra water to clean it out. That’s the best we can do, which is all we can ask.
With that in mind, we should be fine. Since yesterday, we have been. As the falling man said when passing the 60th floor after jumping from a hundred story building, “so far so good.”
JD
