Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Main Clean Out....CHECK!

The other morning I came downstairs and smelled something awful. I went down into the bar and wouldn't you know, the bar was backed up again. I had finally had it, this had gone on too long. I decided to get it fixed. I called a new plumber that a lot of my neighbors use and recommend and decided to get a bid for the job. Jeff Drew, the owner of Drew's Plumbing, came out to perform the bid himself. He came in $200 less then anyone else and after all of my neighbors praises, I scheduled them to get started at 8 am the next morning.

7:23 am my dogs start going crazy. The plumber's are there and ready to work. First they go into the bar and try putting the snake down the large drain in the floor. While they do get a lot of incredibly nasty looking stuff out, it still refuses to drain. So out to the front yard we go. They dig down about 6 feet and found the main cleanout.

Now back in 2007 I had one of my neighbors, who was a retired contractor, landscape my yard for me. Part of the details on our contract included repairing the main cleanout when they were laying all the new irrigation. Imagine my surprise when they dug up the pipe and found that the house was not connected to the sewer!!! Yes, you read that right. The pipe was broken off about 2 inches past the foundation and filled with dirt and debris. Then about 2 feet accross from that, the pipe to the sewer was capped off. That means not only did my neighbor not repair the main cleanout which he charged me for, he also failed to tell me that for the last 4 years, my home has not been connected to the sewer, which obviously raises a ton of other concerns such as, "Do I have a big sink hole of crap under my house."

So the plumbers took the cap off the main sewer line, chipped away the bad pipe coming out of the house, rebuilt the main cleanout and set it slightly above ground for easy future access and snaked all my pipes. Now they were here probably 2 hours longer than planned and ended up doing much more than they originally expected. So I get my invoice, time to pay and OMG!!! it is EXACTLY what I was quoted.

Not even 2 weeks before I paid more money to have my bathroom sink repaired because parts broke while repairing it and instead of taking 1 hour it took 4, which was the plumber's fault. (He ended up having to replace the sink stop and 2 pipes under the sink because he dropped a seat down the drain and when he went to get it out he broke it.) I was originally quoted $250 and paid almost $800 for his mistake!

So imagine my surprise when I was billed exactly what I was quoted. Drew's Plumbing will definitely be handling ALL of our future plumbing needs (which are plenty) and I would highly recommend them to everyone. I now have a bar that drains properly and my plumbing flows like a champ. Now to find out where everything has been going for the last 4 years.

I am happy to report though, I can now check main clean out off our list!




Quit the Rat Race Today