explosive possibilties

Hey guys!

Last weekend we started the process of replacing the pipe to the sewer. It was the original cast iron pipe, and in pretty bad shape. Parts of it broke really easily (the plumber barely leaned up against it and it fell apart) and it was REALLY clogged up. We were going to have to fix the sidewalk because it was in bad shape, and collapsing in one spot. So my Dad suggested while the sidewalk was up we might as well fix the pipe now, rather than in the future with our nice new sidewalk. Why didn't I think of that?

It is a lot more complicated process than I thought. A LOT. My Dad called the city to figure out how deep the pipe to the sewer was buried. Many times it is buried quite a few feet under the ground, but the city said we were only six feet under the ground because we are near a connection. Having a pipe six feet under ground apparently that means we are "lucky"... pipes can be buried twice that deep, depending on how deep the main line is (it is all about gravity and slope).

Anyway, a friend at my Dad's work is doing the work on the garage (post on that to come soon when it is finished!), said that he could handle digging 6 feet with the excavator he was renting for the work on the garage. That saved us a lot of money, because if he didn't do it, the plumbers would have to do it. So on Saturday, he peeled back the sidewalk. He really did make it seem that easy--he's good!

He also had to cut part of the concrete out of the basement so that they could remove the pipe.

The pipe is up against the wall, with the string coming out. The plumbers came to put a camera inside to see if the pipe went straight in or went diagonal. I wasn't there for that, but my Dad was. He said they couldn't get the camera in the pipe because it was so full of, ahem, 'stuff'.

Anyway, the two plumbers were "old-school", as my Dad called them, and just started cleaning it out. The first guy couldn't get his hand in it far enough because it was too big. Yes, you read right. Hand. And no I didn't use the word glove because there wasn't one. So he asked the second plumber if he could get into it. The second plumber went right in elbow deep to clean it out. Again, no mention of a glove. Now I understand the "old-school" label. 

Then on Sunday he started digging. Note: You always want to call BUD (Before You Dig...cute no?) at 811. Then they call OMU, RWRA (sewer people), Time Warner, and ATMOS and request that they mark where all of the lines are so that you don't hit things and cause lots of problems. But that only works if they know where their silly lines are...which they don't always. Or maybe a newbie marked our yard. Another problem is that we didn't know exactly where the sewer pipe was, just the general area. We knew the water line was close and didn't want to hit that. So we watched as he dug the dirt up with the excavator and tried to keep an eye on things. We found the nice copper water line. Check.  So he moved over a little. We were having trouble finding it. We found a ton of tree roots though, thats for sure. And each one sounded awful.

Matt had been digging for at least an hour. He hit something and me, my Dad, and Leo inspected for a second and we told him to keep on digging because it is just another root. He kind of looked at us and said, "That didn't feel like a root." He jumped off and started hand digging a little bit just to make sure. All of a sudden I see something yellow and I get all excited and say "There's something yellow!"

Apparently that's not a good thing. I didn't know that. Insert expletive here.

Yellow can only mean one thing when digging near pipes, and that is a gas line. Gas. Do you get my title now?? I couldn't pass up the cheesiness :)

ATMOS did mark the gas line. They marked the gas line in the wrong place. Not just a little. They messed up SIX feet. How does that even happen? There is a wire on top of the pipe that sends out an electric signal just so its impossible to mess up. Well almost impossible, obviously.

If we had broken into that pipe, the whole block could have exploded. It wasn't just the small pipe to the house, it was the big main one that runs throughout the neighborhood. I am so glad that Matt had enough experience to know he didn't hit a root, and that he didn't listen to me and my Dad that it was just another root.

It took hours to find the sewer pipe and dig it out completely. Here is the result:

Leo hand digging to find a pipe.

Yellow marker to mark the gas pipe we found so he doesn't hit it.

Hole where the pipe came out. 

From the inside.

Monday morning the plumbers came by first thing to install the new pipe and cover it back up with the dirt. This is now what our side yard looks like...

I know we are fixing everything and it is going to be better in the end, but I would like to start seeing the improvement. Everything right now just looks destroyed. Hopefully we will have a sidewalk again soon :)

-katie