We are finally back in our house after a rather exciting week!
The fun began bright and early on Tuesday morning. The Obers were generous enough to come pick up Aidan and Gresham so they wouldn't have to be here for all the noise of jackhammering! The customer service rep. from our builder came with two plumbers to begin work. I use the term "plumbers" loosely, because they looked like the builder man had just picked them up off an alley and given them some tools. We all watched the neat video of our pipes that the original plumber had made, and then realized that the guys that Mr. Builder Rep had brought were expecting the spot on the floor above the broken pipe to be marked. Apparently, they could only jackhammer, but could not find the exact location in which to jackhammer on their own... So Mr. Builder Rep let them go (thank you Lord!) and suggested that maybe our plumber should just do the work since he was going to have to come back out to mark the spot anyway (a fantastic idea!!)
Unfortunately, we couldn't get a hold of anyone at our plumber right away, so Mr. Builder Rep left, and I went to pick up the kids. So much for Tuesday. However, the lady at the plumbing office was very understanding of our situation (we had already coated the house in plastic drop cloths, including all the kitchen cabinets...) and the crew was able to come out first thing on Wednesday.
So, Wednesday morning, Grandma picked up the boys, and the plumbers went to work.
As it turned out, the broken pipe was in the middle of the living room!
We hung up all this lovely plastic to try to keep the dust down. The plumbers were well prepared with a shop vac to catch as much dust as possible.
After an hour of jackhammering, the plumbers still hadn't made it through the slab, because they had run into one of the concrete beams that supports the foundation. They kept going, and lo and behold, the pipes were running
through the beam! Yes, this is against building code, in case you're wondering. I think they said you could have pipes going through a beam, but it isn't desirable, and the code says that they have to be in a sleeve. Whatever that means.
So they made another hole on the other side of the beam to try and find the break. They were wondering if the break was actually inside the beam. This is where they left off on Wednesday.
First thing on Thursday, they found the break! It was bad! The break was in the main drain line for the house. The pipe had backfallen, which means that every time water drained through, some of it also leaked out into the dirt. The pipe probably broke during construction from the force of the concrete being poured for the beam, and no one noticed because it was covered up.
Here you can see the break, along with the lake of sewage that has been festering under our house for 2 and a half years! The smell was really something. I just kept praying and thanking God that the weather was beautiful and we could have the doors and windows open.
The plumbers pumped out the water and dug out some really smelly mud with their hands. One of them commented that "this is why plumbers don't chew their fingernails."
This picture is from the end of the day Thursday. The plumbers were hoping to finish Thursday (well, actually they had been hoping to finish Wednesday...) but because of the damage to the beam, we decided to have a structural engineer come out to look at the foundation. Amazingly enough, Mr. Builder Rep was able to get an engineer out within 4 hours (another answer to prayer!) The plumbers went ahead with fixing, but getting the broken pipe out of the concrete beam proved to be quite a challenge.
On Friday morning, they finally were able to get the pipe out and repair all of the plumbing.
On Friday night, we put plywood over the hole, moved the carpet, and moved back into the house. I think that we cleaned for about 4 hours on Friday. I mopped the floor repeatedly, and there is still cement dust... We also had to dust every surface in the house and do a very thorough vacuum job. We spent the week at my parents house, but they needed to move furniture today for their new carpet and tile coming this week, so it worked out well that we were able to come home!
Today, a cement company came and covered the holes, and someone is coming Wednesday to fix and clean the carpet. And then, hopefully our adventure will be OVER!
We've learned a lot about plumbing this week, and the main lesson is MAKE SURE EVERYTHING GOES DOWNHILL!
