What I am doing this weekend
 

This weekend, I have the delightful task of digging up the greenest part of my yard to repair a broken sewage pipe. It is the only part of my yard that I have enjoyed looking at this summer during the oppressive heat and unbelievable dry spell.

I knew there was a problem as evident by the lushness of the lawn there; however, it had been something the neighbors and I had joked about being my lucky spot in the lawn. Then, Wednesday night, I was walking through the yard to the next door neighbor's house and "squish." That's right. I stepped in a nice little puddle of poo water. Now, I get to dig it up and try to repair it and that little spot will die like the rest of the yard. Hopefully, there will still be enough "nutrients" in the yard to make it last for a while.

This will be so much fun. The thoughts of illness following the adventure just makes it all the better.

I might have to post some pics.

cholera can be a bitch.

For some reason I was thinking I would see my name here.


Hmmmmm

Then TOG would've said 'Who' ...not 'What!'

I wonder if theotherguy has poopy pants yet...

I wonder why the OG doesn't just hire a plumber? I had the same problem once, and it turns out that the 50 year old pipes that comprised my sewage system has just sort of disintegrated due to age and bentonite soil. A whole new sewer line had to be put in. $$$$ :thepain: I hope TOG's problem turns out to be comparatively minor. Hepatitis is another fun disease that one can contract by mucking around in the shit. :headshake

Hey...you have a pm...
;)

I used to manage a CVS store (a major drugstore chain) in the Society Hill neighborhood of Philadelphia (a very well-to-do area). One day, it started smelling like shit in the store--like actual feces. Then I noticed that there was a leak under our conveyor belt downstairs in the basement. And the leak (and smell) got worse as the day progressed. The district manager (who was a raging cocksucker) played it off as no big deal, but then he happened to come in with the regional manager (his boss) later that afternoon. When he asked about the situation, I advised him of the district manager's thoughts on the situation. The regional manager then directed the district manager to have it fixed pronto. We decided to keep the store open that evening, but in hindsight, we should have shut it down.

We had a plumbing crew out there right away, and they had it fixed by the end of the night. Apparently our store was built atop an old bakery that was located in the basement. The bathrooms that were originally down there were not properly sealed off when the building was rehabbed. The sewer lines in one of those bathrooms broke, and all hell broke loose.

God, I hated working for CVS...fucking pieces of shit.

First - IT WAS NOT THE SEWAGE PIPE! HOORAY!

I started out on Saturday morning digging a hole about 2.5 feet deep and about 3 ft in diameter. Apparently, my honing skills are very sharp and I was able to dig straight to the offending pipe the first time. When I got down to it, I discovered there was a 3/4" copper pipe with a very small leak. I typically would not attempt to fix that sort of thing myself, but I have been very adventurous lately when it comes to home repair. I used to say, "there are folks out there who do this for a living, and they have families to feed." Now, I am starting to enjoy trying it myself first. So, off I went to the home improvement store and purchased cooper pipe, a butane torch, solder, the whole thing. Then, I went home and proceeded to get down in the big muddy hole to give it a go. I sat and studied the situation for a while. Read the instructions on all of the items I bought. Thought about it for a little while longer, and then called a plumber. I decided that I did not want my first attempt at soldering to be the main water line going into my house.

I called the big plumbing company around here and they figured it would be around $200. Not too bad I thought. However, being the conscientious shopper, I decided to call some other plumbers to get some competitive pricing. Most were about the same. Some even wanted to charge me $50 to come out and give a quote. "The $50 would apply to your job, of course." I don't think so. I am not going to pay some bonehead $50 just for him to come out and be $100 higher than the other guy. So, I called back the first guy and set it up. The told me he had taken many calls since we last spoke and it would be about 8PM before the could get out. I said that was fine, just put me on the list. Then, I found a guy that was the same price, but could get out sooner. Since the first guy was slammed, I called him back and said I was sure he wanted to get home at some point before midnight, so not to worry about it.

Here's where the fun starts. The guy I had setup to come on out, wound up taking forever to get to my house. I was getting irritated because I was covered in mud and stunk to high heaven. I had decided not to shower since I was sure it was going to be fixed soon. (I could have turned the water back on and taken a shower since it was just a very small hole. Plenty of water going into the house.) When he did show up, he didn't have any tools with him and had to keep borrowing mine. He was a disaster. He talked too much and kept saying things like, "in the book, it says to..." Oh no. Also, he kept cutting himself on the pipe. He told me that each cut was another $10. I told him each tool he borrowed was $25 and it looked like he was going to have to pay me before he left. After 3.5 hours and the leak now being worse than when he arrived. We "agreed" that I would not be paying him and he was free to go. So, I called the original plumber back and set him up for Sunday morning. He arrived about 11 and had it fixed in about 30 minutes. The first thing he did was look in the hole and laugh. He left, I filled in the hole and replaced the sod. All in all, it could have gone better, but it certainly could have gone worse.

That is what I meant. I figured you would know the secret code.

I did a little electrical work on my house on Saturday. To do this one thing, I needed to open an old junction box in the basement and was horrified to find the condition of the wiring in there. I knew the old wire in this circuit was ungrounded. What I didn't know was that there was about two inches of uninsulated hot wire jammed into a corner of the junction box, just looking for something to short out against. I also didn't know that somebody had "grounded" the box by screwing a neutral wire (which carries current sometimes!) to the side of the box.

If someone had touched the side of this box while supporting themselves by holding onto the nearby radiator pipe, they would have received a nasty shock whenever the dining room light was on.

So I fixed it all, converted an ungrounded outlet into a grounded outlet, and even got some basement lights that were set up with individual pull chain switches to be controlled by the switch at the top of the stairs.

I was really pleased with myself, because I didn't need to make any additional trips to the hardware store to get additional materials. I seem to be getting better at this stuff.

Oh great, I shop at that CVS occasionally. Next time I go in, I'll have to think about the poo lurking below.

What is it still doing down there anyway, I wonder. Aren't sewer lines supposed to drain off somewhere? :yelsick:

Ohhh, I get the pipes reference now....sorry...blonde moment.

I am rather concerned at the sewerage? Something you would like to share with me?

Uh, yeah, ummm. I didn't want to say anything before, but, ummm, you might want to go see your doctor.