The Shitter's Full*
Dec. 18th, 2008 10:45 amThis week has been a nightmare. While a lot of my stress went away as school and work stopped for the winter break, my stress level has been elevated again. Mostly it is the normal Christmas stresses appearing. But then there was last weekend.
Last Friday, as I was running laundry, the kitchen sink started to gurgle. I monitored it, but ignored it, as I had other things to do. As Geoff and I were taking showers Saturday evening, it happened again. So we searched on the internet - either we had a clog, or the tank was full. We have lived in the house for over 3 years now, the tank theoretically could be full, but it shouldn't be. Sunday, things were getting worse, so we dumped a bunch of Draino down the two most likely drains to clog - the kitchen sink and the master shower. Nothing changed.
So Monday I managed to catch my neighbor at home - he owns Carolina Pipe Cleaning and he and his wife are fantastic people. He said either the tank was full (and it shouldn't be) or the problem was with the drain field (which would be expensive to fix). He said he would put us on his schedule for pumping.
When a septic system stops working, everything water related does also. I could not was dishes or run laundry. We could not shower Tuesday evening. Heck, we couldn't even flush toilets. We're still debating which is worse, no electricity or no septic.
Anyway, our septic system was pumped yesterday and guess what they found - a 6 ft by 4 ft by 3 ft mass of solidified toilet paper floating on top of the septic tank. That's right, 72 cubic feet of solid toilet paper. The septic guy had to use his shovel to break up some of it so the vacuum could suck it up. At least it was a cheaper fix than fixing the drain field would have been.
So, I should be running mass loads of laundry, but I am now just sitting on my butt, watching Blackadder I, relaxing.
*Five bonus points for anyone who guesses what movie this is from?...
Last Friday, as I was running laundry, the kitchen sink started to gurgle. I monitored it, but ignored it, as I had other things to do. As Geoff and I were taking showers Saturday evening, it happened again. So we searched on the internet - either we had a clog, or the tank was full. We have lived in the house for over 3 years now, the tank theoretically could be full, but it shouldn't be. Sunday, things were getting worse, so we dumped a bunch of Draino down the two most likely drains to clog - the kitchen sink and the master shower. Nothing changed.
So Monday I managed to catch my neighbor at home - he owns Carolina Pipe Cleaning and he and his wife are fantastic people. He said either the tank was full (and it shouldn't be) or the problem was with the drain field (which would be expensive to fix). He said he would put us on his schedule for pumping.
When a septic system stops working, everything water related does also. I could not was dishes or run laundry. We could not shower Tuesday evening. Heck, we couldn't even flush toilets. We're still debating which is worse, no electricity or no septic.
Anyway, our septic system was pumped yesterday and guess what they found - a 6 ft by 4 ft by 3 ft mass of solidified toilet paper floating on top of the septic tank. That's right, 72 cubic feet of solid toilet paper. The septic guy had to use his shovel to break up some of it so the vacuum could suck it up. At least it was a cheaper fix than fixing the drain field would have been.
So, I should be running mass loads of laundry, but I am now just sitting on my butt, watching Blackadder I, relaxing.
*Five bonus points for anyone who guesses what movie this is from?...