A tale of woe and Christmas
Before I start let me state that I had a very nice Christmas, but the week leading up to it was...exciting.
We had our annual HollyDaze Party on the 18th it was very nice and went well, partially because I had some unexpected help from friends (much love to all of them) and partially because I insisted we start cleaning the house a week and a half beforehand. The quarter had been so busy and so exhausting that only basic maintenance cleaning had happened to we needed to deep clean badly.
Here comes the woe.
The Thursday before the party the spot in our yard that had always been damp (but we hadn't thought much of because, well, it's damp here) began to smell, and when I say smell, I mean STINK like, well, sewage. I figured we had a problem because we hadn't gotten out septic tank cleaned in a timely manner because it's easy to forget and we're awesome at forgetting. Saturday morning I was escorting the dogs outside because not only did we have a super stinky mini marsh part of the fence between our house and our neighbors had fallen down during the high winds the previous week. As I stood there throwing balls for the dogs I noticed that the marsh had developed a spring, as in water was burbling up from the ground and running into the marsh. I was duly impressed but there wasn't much I could do except insist we call septic folks ASAP. Eric called our plumber and got the name of 3 companies that the plumber had good experiences with. We carried on with party prep and had a really nice time that evening...well into the morning.
Sundays we go to my folks for dinner almost every week. So between getting up around noon after staying up til erm 4AM or so and going to their place for dinner we didn't get much party clean-up done, a load or two of dishes and not much else.
Monday I worked all day (having traded days off to have Friday free for party prep) and was still exhausted from the party so we got some but not a lot of clean-up done. Eric has called and gotten an appointment to have our septic pumped for Tuesday at 8AM.
Septic guy showed up bright and early Tuesday morning. He found the lid to our septic tank, despite it not being at ALL where we had been told it was. In fact it was half under a railroad tie in our landscaping...yeah. Guy pumps the tank and then starts trying to figure out what's up with our septic spring. He digs up where our septic distributor box should have been...and isn't.
Short lesson in septic systems: All the waste flows into a tank, the solids settle to the bottom and the liquids fill the tank. When the tank is full the liquids flow out through a pipe (called a baffle I believe) into the septic distributor box which is connected to pipes that lead to a drain field where the liquids disperse into the ground. A really simple and I think pretty cool system.
So the damp spot in our lawn (which was also a weird little depression, which was very hard to mow!) was where the distributor box HAD been. At some point it had disintegrated (which cement things do sometimes) and collapsed. Our septic tank was not actually connected to anything. Which explains the damp spot and ensuing bog and spring. The pipes that are supposed to be connected to the box are also very clogged on one side and partially clogged on the other.
The septic guy dug enough of a hole to figure this out and quoted Eric 500.00 to come back dig it all up and see if repairs could be made or if we needed a whole new system. Eric relayed this to me, I freaked out a little since the septic pumping had cleaned out any "spare" funds we had (septic pumping is NOT cheap). We're warned to use the septic as little as possible b/c we don't want to flood the hole that the work needs done in. We still have party dishes and laundry (lots of blankets from house guests)and three people who need showers and to use the bathrooms. I get ready to go to work, come out the living room and there is a puddle of water under our loveseat. I point it out to Eric and Zii and hurry off to work. They clean it up and can't figure out where it came from and decide the dogs knocked something over.
Eric calls my dad. My dad comes over and looks at it (he has experience with septic systems and has recently help my brother replace his septic). They decide to try replacing the distributor box and hooking it up to the partially clear pipe to see if that works until it's dryer and we can dig up the blocked pipe to replace/repair it. Have I mentioned I love my dad? A distributor box only costs 40.00 so I am all about trying this fix. It's getting late in the day so they decide to install it the next day (Wednesday).
I come home from work, having stayed late to makeup for coming in late. Eric, Daddy and Zii are all in the backyard, Zii having recently returned from taking the dogs to the dog park. I walk in the house and there is 1/2 inch of water covering about 1/3 of the living room floor. I go out back, give my dad the coffee I had stopped to get him, tell them all there's a lake in the living room and run back inside. We used every towel, clean or dirty, a king sized blanket and filled the shopvac 3 times to get rid of the water. We figure out that it is coming from the wall between our living room and library, which was originally and exterior wall. Dad and Eric go under the house to see exactly where it's leaking. Zii and i mop and vacuum up water as fast as we can. Corbyn takes advantage of the confusion and rolls in the mud from the hole dug to access the distributor box.
A short lesson in frost free valves: exterior spigots have a knifty thing called a frost free valve. When you turn off your spigot it sucks the water about a foot back from the end of the pipe (the spigot) to keep it from freezing. This is awesome. Unless you forget and leave your hose attached to the spigot. Guess what we did. So when the spigot was turned off it sucked back the water in the pipe, and sucked in the water from the hose.
Remember when it snowed last month? When Eric and I were in CA? And Zii was home alone? Zii, who is from Texas? No one thought to tell her to disconnect the hoses. And it got cold, and froze. And burst the pipe of the frost free valve. Which is, in the wall between my living room and library. We hadn't discovered this previously since we hadn't been using the hose in the back yard. But when the septic guy rinsed off stuff in the morning it made a small puddle. When daddy used the hose to wash off his boots and tools that afternoon, it flooded the living room. So dad cut a hole in the dry wall figured out what had happened and we added that to the docket of things to do the next day, as long as we didn't use the hose nothing leaked so it could wait til the next day. Thankfully frost free valves are screw on pieces and easy to replace and not expensive either.
So now we have a HUGE pile of wet towels etc (in fact it was a mound a foot taller than the side of our bathtub) that we can't wash, party dishes and laundry AND a dog that reeks of septic. None of which we can wash. Zii tried to hose of Corbyn using the front spigot (no leak thank goodness!) but it was a completely inadequate solution. So we take him to a local self serve dog wash and wash him FOUR TIMES before he doesn't stink horribly.
Then we went out to dinner because we couldn't wash dishes and were all stressed out.
Wednesday Daddy came over and our friend Jon Graham came over to help too, and we installed the distributor box, a new frost free valve, and a temporary fence around the still muddy area to keep dogs out of it. It's been raining so much none of the places that sell fill dirt are selling it because it's all mud so we still need more dirt to finish filling in the hole and we are keeping an eye on the whole mess to see if it works and will do until it dries out some and we can do more extensive work on it.
It is now 2 days until Christmas, I had planned to finish my Christmas shopping/sewing Tuesday and Wednesday, our budget took a nasty hit from all of this, the house which had been pretty darn clean for once is a wreck and so are we.
Thankfully we managed to get everything done and had a very nice Christmas and celebrated my older nephew's first birthday (adorable cake eating videohere: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HX4MP_4ChTw )and had friends over for dinner on boxing day.
My living room floor is in sad shape (did i mention it's hardwood?) there's a huge mud pit in my backyard, our budget is messed up but really, it could have been so much worse!
ETA: We contacted our insurance company and the damage to our floor and walls is covered, they may have to replace the floor, they're sending out an appraiser tomorrow! 8)
We had our annual HollyDaze Party on the 18th it was very nice and went well, partially because I had some unexpected help from friends (much love to all of them) and partially because I insisted we start cleaning the house a week and a half beforehand. The quarter had been so busy and so exhausting that only basic maintenance cleaning had happened to we needed to deep clean badly.
Here comes the woe.
The Thursday before the party the spot in our yard that had always been damp (but we hadn't thought much of because, well, it's damp here) began to smell, and when I say smell, I mean STINK like, well, sewage. I figured we had a problem because we hadn't gotten out septic tank cleaned in a timely manner because it's easy to forget and we're awesome at forgetting. Saturday morning I was escorting the dogs outside because not only did we have a super stinky mini marsh part of the fence between our house and our neighbors had fallen down during the high winds the previous week. As I stood there throwing balls for the dogs I noticed that the marsh had developed a spring, as in water was burbling up from the ground and running into the marsh. I was duly impressed but there wasn't much I could do except insist we call septic folks ASAP. Eric called our plumber and got the name of 3 companies that the plumber had good experiences with. We carried on with party prep and had a really nice time that evening...well into the morning.
Sundays we go to my folks for dinner almost every week. So between getting up around noon after staying up til erm 4AM or so and going to their place for dinner we didn't get much party clean-up done, a load or two of dishes and not much else.
Monday I worked all day (having traded days off to have Friday free for party prep) and was still exhausted from the party so we got some but not a lot of clean-up done. Eric has called and gotten an appointment to have our septic pumped for Tuesday at 8AM.
Septic guy showed up bright and early Tuesday morning. He found the lid to our septic tank, despite it not being at ALL where we had been told it was. In fact it was half under a railroad tie in our landscaping...yeah. Guy pumps the tank and then starts trying to figure out what's up with our septic spring. He digs up where our septic distributor box should have been...and isn't.
Short lesson in septic systems: All the waste flows into a tank, the solids settle to the bottom and the liquids fill the tank. When the tank is full the liquids flow out through a pipe (called a baffle I believe) into the septic distributor box which is connected to pipes that lead to a drain field where the liquids disperse into the ground. A really simple and I think pretty cool system.
So the damp spot in our lawn (which was also a weird little depression, which was very hard to mow!) was where the distributor box HAD been. At some point it had disintegrated (which cement things do sometimes) and collapsed. Our septic tank was not actually connected to anything. Which explains the damp spot and ensuing bog and spring. The pipes that are supposed to be connected to the box are also very clogged on one side and partially clogged on the other.
The septic guy dug enough of a hole to figure this out and quoted Eric 500.00 to come back dig it all up and see if repairs could be made or if we needed a whole new system. Eric relayed this to me, I freaked out a little since the septic pumping had cleaned out any "spare" funds we had (septic pumping is NOT cheap). We're warned to use the septic as little as possible b/c we don't want to flood the hole that the work needs done in. We still have party dishes and laundry (lots of blankets from house guests)and three people who need showers and to use the bathrooms. I get ready to go to work, come out the living room and there is a puddle of water under our loveseat. I point it out to Eric and Zii and hurry off to work. They clean it up and can't figure out where it came from and decide the dogs knocked something over.
Eric calls my dad. My dad comes over and looks at it (he has experience with septic systems and has recently help my brother replace his septic). They decide to try replacing the distributor box and hooking it up to the partially clear pipe to see if that works until it's dryer and we can dig up the blocked pipe to replace/repair it. Have I mentioned I love my dad? A distributor box only costs 40.00 so I am all about trying this fix. It's getting late in the day so they decide to install it the next day (Wednesday).
I come home from work, having stayed late to makeup for coming in late. Eric, Daddy and Zii are all in the backyard, Zii having recently returned from taking the dogs to the dog park. I walk in the house and there is 1/2 inch of water covering about 1/3 of the living room floor. I go out back, give my dad the coffee I had stopped to get him, tell them all there's a lake in the living room and run back inside. We used every towel, clean or dirty, a king sized blanket and filled the shopvac 3 times to get rid of the water. We figure out that it is coming from the wall between our living room and library, which was originally and exterior wall. Dad and Eric go under the house to see exactly where it's leaking. Zii and i mop and vacuum up water as fast as we can. Corbyn takes advantage of the confusion and rolls in the mud from the hole dug to access the distributor box.
A short lesson in frost free valves: exterior spigots have a knifty thing called a frost free valve. When you turn off your spigot it sucks the water about a foot back from the end of the pipe (the spigot) to keep it from freezing. This is awesome. Unless you forget and leave your hose attached to the spigot. Guess what we did. So when the spigot was turned off it sucked back the water in the pipe, and sucked in the water from the hose.
Remember when it snowed last month? When Eric and I were in CA? And Zii was home alone? Zii, who is from Texas? No one thought to tell her to disconnect the hoses. And it got cold, and froze. And burst the pipe of the frost free valve. Which is, in the wall between my living room and library. We hadn't discovered this previously since we hadn't been using the hose in the back yard. But when the septic guy rinsed off stuff in the morning it made a small puddle. When daddy used the hose to wash off his boots and tools that afternoon, it flooded the living room. So dad cut a hole in the dry wall figured out what had happened and we added that to the docket of things to do the next day, as long as we didn't use the hose nothing leaked so it could wait til the next day. Thankfully frost free valves are screw on pieces and easy to replace and not expensive either.
So now we have a HUGE pile of wet towels etc (in fact it was a mound a foot taller than the side of our bathtub) that we can't wash, party dishes and laundry AND a dog that reeks of septic. None of which we can wash. Zii tried to hose of Corbyn using the front spigot (no leak thank goodness!) but it was a completely inadequate solution. So we take him to a local self serve dog wash and wash him FOUR TIMES before he doesn't stink horribly.
Then we went out to dinner because we couldn't wash dishes and were all stressed out.
Wednesday Daddy came over and our friend Jon Graham came over to help too, and we installed the distributor box, a new frost free valve, and a temporary fence around the still muddy area to keep dogs out of it. It's been raining so much none of the places that sell fill dirt are selling it because it's all mud so we still need more dirt to finish filling in the hole and we are keeping an eye on the whole mess to see if it works and will do until it dries out some and we can do more extensive work on it.
It is now 2 days until Christmas, I had planned to finish my Christmas shopping/sewing Tuesday and Wednesday, our budget took a nasty hit from all of this, the house which had been pretty darn clean for once is a wreck and so are we.
Thankfully we managed to get everything done and had a very nice Christmas and celebrated my older nephew's first birthday (adorable cake eating videohere: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HX4MP_4ChTw )and had friends over for dinner on boxing day.
My living room floor is in sad shape (did i mention it's hardwood?) there's a huge mud pit in my backyard, our budget is messed up but really, it could have been so much worse!
ETA: We contacted our insurance company and the damage to our floor and walls is covered, they may have to replace the floor, they're sending out an appraiser tomorrow! 8)