Plumbing day 1

Well today’s officially day 1 of the plumbing connection. The plumber from AV Mechanical is scheduled to find the sanitary connection in the basement, dig out all the necessary trenches for the underground connections and connect to them all to the sanitary connection. However, nothing went as planned today.

Remember these two clean out? Well from the look of it they are PVC and ABS pipes that connects to the sanitary line. We have assumed that the rest of the connections are also PVC. But look is deceiving.

Back in December 2013, we dug down on this connection, and it looked like the photo below. It is highly unusual to have clean out like this outside of the house. Not to mention there are two clean outs at the same place. One points towards the inside of the house and one points toward the city connection. However, we never gave it much thought. We just thought that the white PVC pipe will just continue towards inside the house and we can get the plumber to connect to that and we will be done.

But what we thought is far away from the truth. Today the plumber started to dig in the basement and can’t seem to find the sanitary line. The plumber found clay pipes but no PVC pipe. After a lot of digging, it is decide to call in someone with a locator. At that time, I jokingly said, they better have not connected the PVC pipes to the clay pipes right outside the house while we waited for the locator to come on site. This is the clay pipe that we found, and the pipe is already broken as they are dug out.

In the afternoon, the locator is here, and we found some debris inside the clean out. So a snake is used to clean some of that out. And then my worst dream came true. The snake came right out of the clay pipes that was dug out earlier. Who in the right mind changes the pipes on a private property part of the sanitary connection from clay to PVC, adds two clean outs, yet leaves the rest of the connection in clay? Well at a partial good news is that  we scoped the city part of the connection and it looked okay.

Of course I am not going to connect my sanitary line to the clay pipes. Look at these clay pipes that were dug out. They crack and damage easily, and roots can easily grow into the connection collars and block the connection. So I have decided to pay for a small excavator to come in and dig enough to have these clay pipes completed removed. Because the front of the house has a concrete foundation poured for the stairs, it will be difficult to get the line to come into the house this way. But it should be able to run the line along the south side of the house and get into the house right at the corner.

Here’s the big hole that the plumber dug up to try to find the sanitary connection. The clay pipes comes in on the right side under the footing. This will be the corner that we will try to get the new sanitary line to come in from.

Here are the trenches that was dug and it will be used for the underground drain connections.

And here are the pipes, fittings, sump pit, back water valve, and other parts that will be used for the underground connections.

An excavator is now scheduled to be delivered on site tomorrow and the plumbers will come and try to dig out that connection on Wednesday. Figures crossed that it doesn’t cost too much extra for all that.