Supposedly our main drain/sewer line is finally fixed. It only took three weeks and about 635 dollars. For those three weeks we were able to run everything water related except the washer, because it let out to much water at once.
The cost breakdown:
$51.70 rental cost from Home Depot as an attempt to snake the drain ourselves
$134.00 first attempt by professional to snake it, but could only get it partially done because of only having access to the floor drain
$271.15 cost of having a professional bring a specialized camera out to try and find out if our entire line needed to be fixed do to it collapsing. This is after a 10% discount.
$119 the second trip out with the camera because Nathan didn't get a copy of the tape to give to the City also discounted.
$60 ish the cost to snake from the outside access that was found the 2nd time the camera went through.
So for those of you that haven't had the experience of going through major plumbing problems here is some good advice:
1. Find out if you have outside access to your main plumbing/sewer line. If we would have found this right away we could have probably saved about $400.
2. Three magic words: Sewer Lateral Program. If our pipes had been collapsed (which it didn't, we had roots) underground in the yard, this program would have paid for most if not all of the cost of digging up our entire yard and replacement. Our municipal (and most in STL) have this program and it is kick ass.
3. Make sure your floor drains are covered.
4. Do maintenance on your pipes by running a snake through every two years or so. You can rent one (from Home Depot) and do it yourself fairly easily if you have the outside access.
No I am not happy about dropping all the money we did, but we definitely learned a lot about our plumbing system. One of the joys of being a homeowner I suppose.
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5 comments:
Oh, and the poo flying was a bit over dramatic....it didn't fly in the air like superman or anything.
Good God that sucks. I'll make a mental note of this type of thing to remind me why it's not always puppies and rainbows when owning a house:)
Uggghhhh that sucks Teresa! But, I'm making a mental note of what you've learned in case we have any future issues. ;)
If it makes you feel any better, we spent about $5200 a year and a half ago to replace our entire sewer line from our house to our property line (about 80 feet). Oh, and then we had to have the entire backyard re-graded and sodded after 6 months time to allow for the dirt to "settle". The city would not compensate us for the repairs that we had made even though our line was cast iron and had major holes and structural issues (I don't know if this is different from a collapse).
At any rate, sewer problems suck! I'm glad yours is back up and running!
Julia, Yep home ownership has it's downfalls for sure. Even with our house having a good renovation we still have put at least $3,000 in various repairs in it since June.
Kristal, hopefully my situation will be able to help you in the future!!!
Christie, I thought you had mentioned something before about your sewer line, but I had no idea you had so much done! Wow....
Although I found out ours in 50+ feet to the street so if we would of had the same problems as you we would have been forking over some money too!!!
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