Pastor Al, the man who performed my wedding, died recently of an aggressive Lymphoma. It was really fast, apparently. redmed is driving south today for the funeral, which is tomorrow. Very sad.
I was torn as to whether or not I could go, with commitments to work and other things. I was dithering right up to the last minute (suitcase packed, but still not convinced that I could walk out the door), when lo-and-behold, plumbers arrived to fix my plumbing. That settled it. These bastards have been on and off for months (probably dealing with many more important things each particular day…but after a couple of months it grates.
The plan, as we agreed a while ago, is to
(a) remove all of the sub-code plumbing. All the 2″ drain line from toilets, all the long parallels with heating lines, all the crazy negative pitch runs. All of those must go.
(b) Tie off the decent plumbing, which includes the 2nd bathroom and the washer/dryer. At this point, we’ve got one functional bathroom.
(c) Bring code-compliant drainage from the master bathroom towards the main drain. If this involves chiseling through the foundation, so be it. When we get that pipe to the primary part of the basement, tie in the kitchen sink and the dishwasher to this new line. Attach all this to a pump. The pump will fire sewage in a decorative fountainlike arc across the basement and directly into the main drain. Actually, there will be pipe there too.
(d) Install a garbage disposal under the sink
(e) Profit!
So they showed up today with this pump, and the pump didn’t fit down the basement stairs.
At that point the plumber started looking at the existing crap and saying “well, you know, this isn’t so bad here … we could just maybe…”
I said “No.” The conversation was longer than that, but that’s a decent summary. I very nearly used a line pioneered by my friend John Freeman: “What would a smart guy do here?”
So we compromised. They’re ripping out the sub-code stuff. Then they’re going to install the parts that absolutely must be installed. I.e: They’re going to work in from the bathroom, doing their best to maintain pitch. When they punch through the wall with the new pipe, we’ll see (a) whether the pump is really necessary (b) what we can do from there.
This will not be another hack job.
–Update–
They are now using some sort of mini-jackhammer to chisel through our foundation. Pipe is being passed into the basement through the casement windows. Progress is being made. The cats are spooked, badly.
Leave a Reply