And the rain it raineth every day

[kayshapero]

THAT was interesting....

I was in here about an hour ago reading my mail when I heard the sound of raindrops. In the hall. I ran out the door and found the ceiling was dripping... and I'm on the first floor. Upstairs, I found someone had flushed the toilet, left the room, and it had not only overflowed but continued to do so until I arrived. Turned off the water, ran downstairs for the shop vac and started slurping up water. My daughter, right next to all this finally noticed something was up... so I had her run soggy bathroom towels, rugs and whatever down to the washing machine. She also thought to put down pans under the downstairs downpour, bless her. It's all vacced up now (had to empty the thing twice), I turned the water back on and the toilet just sat there innocently filling up the tank then stopping like nothing had ever happened. I put down a towel, warned Vicky to watch the treacherous thing after flushing it, and came back down here. Oh what fun is homeownership... (I'm just glad the hamper was downstairs next to the washing machine at the time, so I didn't get more laundry than would fit...)

Well now - the machine has finished washing without sounding the off-balance warning once. I think it's the first time it's washed those rugs without doing that. I guess something around here likes me. Unless.. nope, checked and it's NOT overflowed.

Sigh - I'm just glad I was up late - otherwise I might not have discovered this until the morning and not had time to deal with it. Now if the downstairs ceiling/upstairs floor will only condescend NOT to develop dry rot...

Comments

[alohawolf.livejournal.com]

had that happen once, never knew carpet would absorb that much water, OR that our carpet that THAT dirty

[mdlbear]

I woke up in the middle of the night a few years ago to the sound of a waterfall. Turned out it was the hot-water hose on one of the (downstairs, luckily) bathroom sinks suddenly slipping off its pipe. About 3/4 inch of hot water on the bathroom floor, and soaking into the bedroom carpet. Entertaining.

[murasaki99.livejournal.com]

Gee, sounds like your toilet needs to meet my root-clogged pipes for a really water-logged good time!

Shall we sing, "Raindrops keep fallin' on my head" in unison? :D

[kayshapero]

Roots, you say... Early last year the washing machine standpipe overflowed, a sufficiently routine occurance that I'd had the sense to leave a catch basin under it (which is still there I hasten to add), but causing me to call Yama the Plumber to clean out the pipe. He finished the job, ran the washing machine a couple of cycles to prove it was now draining properly.. which it was. I stepped out of the computer room (maybe that's it - I should stay in there)... and into a pond in the downstairs hall outside the downstairs bathroom, which was flooded. Turned out all that water that didn't come back out the standpipe when the plumber checked the washer had come back up every drain in the bathroom... Yeech... This was a bit outside his scope so we called someone else to clear the outside drain. After various alarums and excursions (there is one drain service I will never, ever, have anything whatsoever to do with), it turned out that not only did the sewer pipe run out to the alley right past the magnolia tree on the parkstrip, but whoever built the original housing development had used clay pipe.

You probably can figure the rest of that story - I wound up having the whole sewer pipe from the house to the city system replaced with something roots don't grow through, for a hefty sum. Naturally it didn't help that our pool, put in by the previous inhabitants, has the Concrete Deck from Hell (that thing will still be there when Los Angeles has withered away) and the line ran under it. So we hired someone with a hydraulic system that just rams the new pipe, liner and all, through the old pipe. And I need to put in a new side hedge this fall (last year I planted tomatoes in the strip they dug up, but I really do need something to defend that side of the house from overly careless drivers, and a nice dense hedge beats a fence any day.) If it isn't one thing it's another...

Hmm.. Speaking of hedges, anybody got a plant they'd recommend? I'd use rosemary bushes, but my daughter can't stand the smell and it'd be right under her bedroom window (she's on the second story, but still...) I'm considering just going for boxwood - the one that came with the house tends to get too leggy.

[murasaki99.livejournal.com]

Wow, you had a fun time. I'm not at the state of driving a new pipe - yet. But if I get the house remodelled some year, either I'd have it all replace or something like that.

Heh, my house is 50+ years old and over time former owners did 'interesting' things to it in terms of home improvement, including pouring new patio around a sprinkler head so it can't be removed and replaced. :-\

My dad says, 'just build a new house', but I *like* my neighborhood and the house itself is perfectly sturdy, it just needs some work, a garage, paint, maybe a new roof...

When you find a good plumber, keep him (or her)!

[kayshapero]

Yeppers - when Yama can't handle it himself, he usually knows who to call. Though in this particular case he didn't know either and I had to use the phone book. After the guy who got his snake stuck in the pipe and had to come back after it the next day, I found a sewer pipe specialist and called him in instead. He was competent, the result is working fine, I'll gladly recommend him to LA area friends.. and I hope I never have to see him again. :) We replaced all the inbound pipe some time ago (Yama did know someone to recommend that time), so the only pipes left unreplaced are those in the drain system. And the way that toilet's acting, maybe I'd better start researching drain replacement specialists... :(