This morning after I got home from class, I called Mr. L., the Plumber par Excellence, and he met me casa M’hijito, where of late a geyser was said to have erupted in the laundry room.
He decided pretty quick that the problem was a clog in the drain line. However, he had a time figuring out exactly how the lines were configured because of where the leak seemed to be coming from. He called his sidekick, who appeared in due course, parking a second large plumber’s truck in front of the house.
Studying the situation, they think the drain drops straight down from where you can see the fixtures into the ground, where it courses under the foundation, under the patio slab, and eventually connects with the line to the sewer. The reason the water is pouring out from under the workroom’s west wall is that the workroom floor is designed so water will drain down toward the door, should a washer overflow. So the water bubbling up from the clog is simply seeping toward the west wall, building up there, and then surging out from under the plaster.
The reason it’s doing that, they believe, is that there’s a small crack along a pipe seam. When there’s no clog, the water flows so fast through the pipe that little or no water leaks from it, and what does drip out simply soaks down into the soil beneath the slab.
“Uhmmmm…. Won’t this eventually lift the slab?”
“No,” says Mr. L. “It’s OK for a little water to seep under a slab.” In fact, he says, the way the house’s shower is built, with dirt directly under the pan, is ideal, because if the shower pan leaks it will do no harm. The problem was, the clog was pretty solid and so water was backing up and actually coming UP in an exuberant way. A washerful of water has a lot of force as it’s backwashing upward. And so on.
So the men get up onto the roof and run a rotorooter line through the standpipe, planning to ream out the pipe all the way to the connection with the sewer line. They’ve determined that the water from the kitchen and bathrooms is getting through to the drainout line just fine.
They run this thing and run it and run it and run it and run it and run it and it is hotter than goddamned HELL and after about a half-hour or forty minutes of this torment both men are drenched and literally dripping with sweat. They persist, continuing to run the thing until finally they break through and then they haul many, many yards of metal cable back up out of the plumbing.
That’s when the sidekick appears in the house with a report on what they found. Hang onto your hat: Mr. L. hauled a dead rat up out of the drainpipe!
Summbiche.
He said that was a first for him. He looked a little green around the gills, because apparently the vic’ had been there for a few days. He said the little guy was not only disintegrating, he had created enough of a plug that with the grease and lint that flowed in after him, the mess had completely plugged the drainpipe.
Oookayyyy… So, how do we think Ratty got into the drain?
He said the standpipe on the roof has another pipe that connects to it at a right angle, high enough that a good-sized critter, which this one was, could reach up and wiggle its way into the top of the pipe. Probably the rat was searching for water, the scent of which it could smell around the standpipe. By way of seeking water, the little fellow probably lost his footing and fell down in there.
But Mr. L said he was very concerned about the possibility of rats getting into the attic. He asked if M’hijito has heard any scuttling around in the attic or walls at night. He says they’ll wreak real havoc if they get inside the attic, and they must be kept out of there at all costs. Once they get into an attic, they chew up the electric wiring, and that’s a very expensive fix.
They can’t get into the attic through the standpipe and vents, because those don’t open inside the attic. But all openings around the attic larger than the size of a nickel have gotta be closed tight. Also, he urged that we get the trees trimmed a good long way from the house, because this particular variety of Rattus is pretty acrobatic and can jump several feet.
After all that work and a very unpleasant development to deal with, Mr. L. only charged $120. He was there more than two hours—closer to three, come to think of it.
Gerardo, who promised to come remove the sheared-off paloverde tree, was in mañana mode today, a not unusual development with him. As his excuse, he trotted out the grand old classic, “My Truck Broke Down.” With that truck, it’s possible. Since it behooves us for one of us (i.e., the one who’s not working 9 to 6) to keep an eye on Gerardo’s ministrations, that will eat up all of tomorrow afternoon!
Meanwhile, we have three practical pieces of plumbing-maintenance advice from the redoubtable Mr. L:
1. Continue trying to keep washer lint out of the drain. At both houses, the washer hose drains into a utility sink. We each attach those nylon mesh bags that lemons and other veggies are sold in, using wire bag ties to secure them tightly to the end of the hose. Mr. L. thought that was a great idea, as long as they’re changed out frequently. Don’t, however, try this if you hook your washer hose directly into the drain standpipe.
2. Do everything you possibly can to keep grease of any kind out of the kitchen drain. He says it was a combination of lint and grease that built up against the Deceased to create an almost impenetrable clog. He says NOTHING should go down that drain that has any grease in it, and he remarked that even spaghetti sauce is toxic to drains. Take a few paper towels and wipe out a pan before washing it in the sink.
3. Once a week, fill both sinks with water. Cold water is as good as hot. Fill them to the top and then open both drains at once. This will push water down through the pipes with a fair amount of force, and that will help to clear whatever has collected in the drain over the week.
To the latter, I will add a bit of huswifery that I learned during my youth in the Cretaceous: Before you fill the sinks, run hot water down the drains. Then pour a cup of ammonia in there, and plug the drain tight. This strategy melts and loosens the grease down in there, without doing the kind of damage that a chemical like Drano commits. Let the ammonia sit in there for at least a half hour or an hour—or, preferably, overnight. THEN fill both sinks with water and blast the drains with that.
When last seen, the plumbers were discussing what they would have to drink at Happy Hour…
