ugh. plumbing. [again]

I looked it up. It's been five years, five months, and five days since I fixed our kitchen drain plumbing for the first time. Apparently, at that time I should have been doing the walls of our bedroom, rather than cutting out a large section of our drain and redoing it.

Fast-forward. Five years, five months, and five days. I should have been doing the walls of our bathroom, rather than cutting out an even larger section of our drain and redoing it. But I'm stupid. And I guess I don't learn. Bother.

So Saturday, as I was preparing to start mudding and taping the bathroom walls... our kitchen sink drain stopped working. Again, just as it did... (yep) five years, five months, okay okay... Mother trucker.

Let me just say, that all the tips the plumbing books and the websites and the forums say to clear a stopped drain (using a plunger, followed by a snake) don't work for sh*t. They're all a load of crap.

Okay okay again. Thankfully I wasn't dealing with sewage. Just the ground up food stuff from... (yep) five years, okay bloody h*ll already...

This weekend sucked, if that wasn't obvious. But I can only blame myself, in thinking all those years ago when I remodeled the kitchen of how cool and classy it would be to install my very own garbage disposal. Heck, in that case, I can blame my parents... for having grown up in a house with one, and thinking how I was an adult and learning how to remodel my home and so, by gosh darnit, I'm gonna figure out how to install a disposal.

Except, as I've pointed out... I'm stupid.

Which is really just saying I didn't take into account simple physics. Namely, a few important nuances, including...

1. How long the run of pipe was until it dumped into the main sewer line
2. The slope angle of the pipe
3. The diameter of the pipe

The run goes halfway across the house (12'), then from near the back of the house to under the crawl space (12') before dropping into the sewer drain, and it was done with 1-1/2" ABS (vs. 2", which would be less-prone to clogging for obvious reasons). That, and the plumber or whoever did the job lost nearly 6" in two 90º bends, not leaving enough for the first 12' run from the outside wall to the middle of the house to drop the (minimum) 1/4" per foot of pipe. I ended up, back five years ago, hacking some of the wall out in order to allow for that necessary slope.

And that's the minimum.

So yeah... the pipes were destined to clog. This time, for real. As in... for real for real. When I cut out the second 12' section after the second 90º bend, then cut it in pieces to get it out of the cavity in which it was built, the cross-section revealed a pipe utterly, completely, totally... clogged. With crap. While, again, thankfully... not literally. But just a step up from literal crap.

There's quite honestly nothing more fun than spending a Saturday cutting into a drain line -

Followed by clumps of years-old waste and backed up water sloshing onto your head and all over the floor. Ahh yes, certainly good times indeed. Good times, indeed.

A trip to the store to get the necessary plumbing parts, wearing the clothes covered in that stuff, was followed by first dry-fitting - then glueing - everything together. Here's the new 90º bend, where the pipe drops 4" in about, yep, 6" of length. Brilliant.

And the splice -

Right before where the drain from the bathroom we're currently remodeling (and of which I should have been mudding the walls so I can tile) joins and heads to the front of the house to connect with the sewer line -

Yeah. Phwew. And double phwew, because when I inspected the last section of pipe I had cut out right up to that junction... it was clear. Meaning, the sludge had stopped just a couple of feet before that, so I didn't have to redo any of that plumbing.

So yeah. As I cursed (K wasn't home), I also realized how foolish that was, how foolish I was. As I pulled out of the parking lot of the hardware store Sunday afternoon with my $40 in plumbing pieces, I passed a woman hobbling down the sidewalk across the street. I can walk, run even, heck... ski. I can cut up our plumbing and figure out how to fix it myself, for $40 and a weekend. Who was I to be upset? I needed to be thankful, to count all of the blessings I have.

I was frustrated, sure. We're all allowed to get frustrated from time to time. That's inevitable, and we're human. But in the end, when K turned the water on in the sink after the glue had set on all the new pipes and fittings, and I heard the sweet, sweet sound of water trickling through the plumbing above my head, all the way through the house, I smiled. It felt good.

But I'm not forgetting. Not this time. So I'll be disconnecting the garbage disposal. We bought a couple of sink strainers and will never, ever, ever, ever, ever... ever rinse another food scrap down the drain.

Ever.

No, seriously. Ever.

I mean it.

---

ps - thank you, Evon Brow, for that wonderful comment you had left all those years ago...  I really appreciated re-reading it. Now, for real, hopefully I can permanently cross this off my list of worries!

we have walls.

Back last August, after a weekend of demolition and framing, our bathroom looked like this -

Today we finally finished hanging the sheetrock, and it looks like this -

It's coming along... Next I have to mud all of the sheetrock before we can tile, which will be exciting.

We also cut a new hole for the forced air vent, and a hole for the new fan (which I'll need to vent through the roof before we can use it - no doubt a fun project... ) -

And months ago I put together the built-in cabinet, which I'll mention at some point...

So yeah.... next up, mudding (yay!). Although Scott shared a tip that he's never sanded mud. Instead, he uses a wet sponge which he says smooths the mud amazingly, and with no mess. I was intrigued, and may have him show me his technique (I get pretty particular with mudding sheetrock, and don't tend to let others help or touch the walls heh... ).