The Pipes and all about them
So, here they are, photos. First task was the spelunking trip. Going under the house in the 18" crawl space, joining the territory of scorpions, black widows, and snakes, not to mention large roaches. Yuck. So, I wiggle around under the house looking at broken pipes.
Finally, I manage to find a spot where I can dig, in the 18" crawl space. Like a caver or miner, I have on my headlamp and laying on my belly, using a garden trowel, dig out around a pipe to try and figure out where the sewer line exits the house.
I manage to find what I think is the exit. So we go outside and begin to dig. Digging in the desert is a mix of rocks and very light dust, but mostly rocks or so it seems. After digging down about 3 feet, we manage to find the pipe. Its old cast iron and pretty well corroded through.
The contractor took one look and said rather matter of factly, just dig back another 10' and find the junction. If its more cast iron, thats bad, very bad. If you can find asbestos pipe, thats good. So we extended the trench. Digging sewer lines is no where near as much fun as working in the bead mines.
Here is the trench, in its full 15' long glory. Its about 3-3.5 feet deep and two days work. You can see the rust and corrosion from/on the pipe. Im afraid of whats just on this end of the cast iron, is it more cast or asbestos ? In this case, fear =$.
This is what 60+ year old pipe looks like after being buried in the desert. No holes in this section but dont press your luck by scraping it too hard with the shovel either. Pitty they didnt use something more rust resistant then.
And the result is... HOORAY !
Here is the tie in with the asbestos pipe. So now, once we replace the all the pipe to here, no one will ever need to worry about this again. Course it will bear a heavy burden on my checkbook but whats done is done. As our favorite honey dipper used to say, "its a shitty job but someone has to do it".
Well, now the real work can begin, laying the line back under the house, re-plumbing all the fixtures, cutting into walls and floors to replace all the old line. I just cant wait !
If you bought my beads recently or bid/bought from the PTP sale (Pay The Plumber) on Justbeads.com, Thank You. This is where your $ is going..... into this hole in the yard. It will also explain a lack of new beads, my time is being spent on this. Hopefully the next post on this topic will simply report we are re-plumbed and making beads again !
Finally, I manage to find a spot where I can dig, in the 18" crawl space. Like a caver or miner, I have on my headlamp and laying on my belly, using a garden trowel, dig out around a pipe to try and figure out where the sewer line exits the house.
I manage to find what I think is the exit. So we go outside and begin to dig. Digging in the desert is a mix of rocks and very light dust, but mostly rocks or so it seems. After digging down about 3 feet, we manage to find the pipe. Its old cast iron and pretty well corroded through.
The contractor took one look and said rather matter of factly, just dig back another 10' and find the junction. If its more cast iron, thats bad, very bad. If you can find asbestos pipe, thats good. So we extended the trench. Digging sewer lines is no where near as much fun as working in the bead mines.
Here is the trench, in its full 15' long glory. Its about 3-3.5 feet deep and two days work. You can see the rust and corrosion from/on the pipe. Im afraid of whats just on this end of the cast iron, is it more cast or asbestos ? In this case, fear =$.
This is what 60+ year old pipe looks like after being buried in the desert. No holes in this section but dont press your luck by scraping it too hard with the shovel either. Pitty they didnt use something more rust resistant then.
And the result is... HOORAY !
Here is the tie in with the asbestos pipe. So now, once we replace the all the pipe to here, no one will ever need to worry about this again. Course it will bear a heavy burden on my checkbook but whats done is done. As our favorite honey dipper used to say, "its a shitty job but someone has to do it".
Well, now the real work can begin, laying the line back under the house, re-plumbing all the fixtures, cutting into walls and floors to replace all the old line. I just cant wait !
If you bought my beads recently or bid/bought from the PTP sale (Pay The Plumber) on Justbeads.com, Thank You. This is where your $ is going..... into this hole in the yard. It will also explain a lack of new beads, my time is being spent on this. Hopefully the next post on this topic will simply report we are re-plumbed and making beads again !
posted by Stoffobeads at 1:14 PM
1 Comments:
Gotta love owning a home. If the plumbing isn't going bad, the roof is. Or the heater. Or the well. Or the frig. Never ends.
If I had it to do all over again, I'd build a shack, Chigger's style, where you coud just burn it down when something went wrong.
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