Lemme tell you, our bathroom’s wallpaper wasn’t its only problem-to-be-remedied recently. So brace yourself while we weave a little plumbing tale that spanned over the last few weeks (in fact it just wrapped up a few days ago). You know how we solemnly swear to share the good, the bad, and the ugly? Well, this one can be filed under “the bad” and “the ugly” with a side of “the gross.” So for everyone’s sake, we’ll leave out the graphic pictures.
During the process of buying this house we noticed a very small, dried out water stain on the ceiling in the living room, right below where the bathroom was. We and the inspector concluded it was likely from a toilet overflow from long ago, since the stain was only about 3″ wide and long dried up. So we weren’t too alarmed and just figured it was solved decades ago, so a little primer and ceiling paint were all that it needed. We never even photographed it, but here’s a hint as to where it was.
Then this fall, the toilet started to act up. Namely in that it would occasionally clog (this is your first hint to put down your breakfast) and when we attempted to plunge it, well, it would back-up into the shower. If that first hint didn’t work, something tells me you’re putting your breakfast down right about now.
Yeah, it was gross. And since a certain half of this relationship was already queasy from growing a tiny human, I was the only one on duty (a little pun to lighten the mood). Usually a bit more plunging and maybe a bit of snaking would fix the issue. I say “usually” because this happened more than once. And before you start judging our gastrointestinal prowess, I should note that this sort of back-up sometimes happened when the toilet wasn’t even involved – maybe after a shower or after I shaved in the sink. We googled for answers and contemplated calling in a pro, but the “incidents” were few and far enough between that we figured we could hold out ’til we remodeled the room.
But last month came the back-up that plunging could not conquer.
***PHOTO OMITTED TO PROTECT YOUR DELICATE RETINAS***
And in all of my furious plunging, I managed to create a new water stain in the ceiling below. I’d later learn that all the pressure of such vigorous plunging had compromised the wax ring and water started leaking again. That was our cue to call in a pro. He removed the toilet, ran an 150 foot snake and dislodged what he concluded was “years worth of paper build-up” way down in our pipes somewhere. Phew! Problem solved.
Except it wasn’t. Fast forward another week and the shower starts to back-up again. In fact, it happens as I’m using the tub to fill up the steamer during may latest wallpaper removal spree. So not only was that process miserable on its own, I was doing it with a less than fresh-looking (and smelling) shower nearby. Not to mention that we’re both beyond frustrated that our first call to the plumber didn’t solve the problem. So yeah, clearly the picture below was taken before the back-up happened. Just look at me all footloose and fancy free.
Remember when I called this post-wallpapered look: “gas station bathroom.” I was really thinking it was more reminiscent of that scene in Trainspotting. Yeah, you know the one. And if you don’t, well, I highly suggest that you NOT google it right now. Okay, maybe our bathroom wasn’t that bad. But it was bad enough that I was embarrassed that this was the state the plumbers would see it in.
Then again, things didn’t get much prettier once they arrived. Now that I think about it, I guess they’ve pretty much seen it all.
The plumbing company sent a different guy this time and, after explaining the series of events, he had a pretty solid theory. But it meant cutting into our ceiling to confirm it. Welcome to our crash course in two-story home issues. Kinda made us miss the days where virtually everything was visible from a crawl space or attic.
His hunch was correct. All of the bathroom plumbing was configured wrong. And it had been for 30+ years since they built this house. A key element – the slope of the main drain pipe – was incorrect. So rather than having gravity to help water leave the vicinity, it was actually sloped uphill – so water and sewage that should have been flushed down and out of the house would collect and pool and eventually back-up into the lowest opening in that bathroom (i.e. the shower). In the words of Clara: yuckaroo.
The only solution was to cut a bigger hole in the ceiling and have the experts replace all the plumbing. It even meant cutting out one of the load-bearing joists and reinforcing it with a new one so the new pipes could be configured at the right angle, so it was nothing that we dared to attempt ourselves.
Did we like having our house torn apart? No. But we were pretty relieved that the root of the problem was finally getting fixed. And I’ll admit that we were pretty entertained by the view through the floor.
It only took them a day to complete the task (they came back a few days after their initial diagnosis to get it done) along with a somewhat painful $650 check, but we were relieved that this hidden-behind-the-walls issue that had plagued this house for over three decades was finally solved. Which meant we could finally get back to our little bathroom update. And hey, while the toilet was removed, we were able to strip that small swatch of wallpaper that had been hiding behind the bowl, so that was kind of funny (very marginally at the time, but more so now).
But we were still left with that gaping hole in the living room ceiling well after the bathroom was trimmed out and painted.
We went back and forth about drywalling it ourselves – which basically involves mudding, taping, sanding, re-mudding, and re-sanding. Smooth ceilings are especially tricky (imperfections are a lot more visible up there) and we knew any remaining dents or seams would have bugged us forever, so we finally just pulled the trigger and called a highly recommended local drywall guy.
He fixed it flawlessly in a few hours for around $100, and was also very nice (he said Sherry looked like Topanga from Boy Meets World, which pretty much made our day). So now all we’ve got to do is prime and paint it.
Update: A few folks have asked if our home warranty would have covered this issue (that actually ran out before this fiasco) but it most likely would not, since this was an “existing condition” (the plumbing didn’t break after we moved in, it was configured this way for 30 years, so that’s not something typically covered by a home warranty).
These unplanned homeowner curveballs never feel good (especially when we’d rather be spending that money on fun updates that we can actually see and enjoy) but it’s nice to have things all put back together again. The irony is that we have another “oh the joys of home ownership” story unfolding (it’s still halfway-solved, so we’ll wait for the full resolution before crying on your shoulder). Please tell us we’re not the only ones. Regale us with some of your tales of woe in the plumbing/heating/other house systems arenas. We’re all in this together. Right?
Psst- The “Volume Two” part of this post’s title is thanks to this original leak lesson that we dealt with a few years ago at our last house. Best thing about that one is that it was something we could solve ourselves (read: zero benjamins).
Dani says
Um, I totally feel your pain. 100%. Within 30 days of moving into our house we had to:
Replace dead dryer.
Run new gas line for said dryer.
Replace the refrigerator when it died.
Replace garage door opener when it became possessed and unsafe.
And about a week later… the furnace died. Catastrophically. With much carbon monoxide.
Oh, this does not mention the multiple small leaks (faucets, bathtub) that we fixed, or the toilet that took 3 flappers and an eventual complete overhaul that came with a knee injury to fix.
Yeah, home ownership is… interesting. Keep on truckin!
YoungHouseLove says
Oh Dani, that sucks! I’m so sorry!
xo
s
Sue Stewart says
Oohhh!! I just had to jump in here! Plumbing problems make me cringe (even tho I’m a plumber’s daughter!) many years ago we had a family cookout and I sent many many green veggie peels down the garbage disposal. At the end of the day we were so embarrassed to find it had al come back up in the bathtub of the guest bathroom, it was like vegetable soup in there! wonder how many guests thought it was gross too! Knocking on wood for all of us!! (20 years later, I’m still careful about roughage in the disposal!)
YoungHouseLove says
Eeks!
xo
s
Amanda ~NoDak Nest says
Just a few weeks ago we took down some really awesome pine paneling in our dining room only to realize it was covering the problems underneath. A MUCH too small header was doing it’s best to hold up our house and we also uncovered some illegal electrical work. What started as a simple cosmetic procedure turned into an all out reconstructive surgery. Plus side? Our ceiling will no longer collapse on any guests that may come over. That would be a bummer, huh? :)
YoungHouseLove says
Holy cow, so glad you caught that before it was too late! What a frustrating discovery though!
xo
s
Diana Ch. says
We had 2 plumbing related issues. Both very costly.
1. When we removed the old carpet upstairs, we discovered the plywood to the master bathroom entrance was rotten. It was positioned so, that almost all of the board was in the master bedroom, and about 6 inches were under the walls & bathroom door. My husband was able to remove the board, but had to cut away the bottom groove from the new plywood and mallet it into place under the door. Of course, we also had to redo the whole bathroom, since the plumbing from the old tub was leaking and causing the rotting. So that was a very unpredicted bath remodel, new shower, tiles, etc.
2. I noticed a small leak in the basement, we called a plumber and he said he couldn’t touch it cause it was connecting to the outside plumbing, and we apparently had the old “defective” type of pipes they had used in the 80’s. So to replace the pipes connecting to the street, a large tow-truck came and pulled a new smaller copper pipe inside the existing defective pipe. That was lucky for us, so they dig through the whole front yard. It cost “only” a few thousand.
dawn @ peek photography + design says
sigh… we had the same problem. had to get a hole cut in the ceiling under our master bath… only our hole was about half the size of yours – but its still there (6 months later) b/c apparently drywall in the Seattle area is an expensive endeavor. we still have not been able to find anyone to patch it for under $600. we even got a quote for $900!! so the hole remains… like a hole in my heart every time I walk under it and see the exposed plumbing. :(
YoungHouseLove says
Boo! Anyone in the Seattle area with a drywall guy hookup? $600 for a hole half the size as ours sounds really steep!
xo
s
Alisha says
You are definitely not the only one with house issues. We bought our house in June. We have found huge holes with anchors that the previous owners used to hang cabinets and the range hood. Our dishwasher’s float device got jammed thus preventing less and less water with each wash. Our downstairs toilet stopped flushing. Both of our showers are dripping. The upstairs half bath sink is leaking under the sink and our water heater just had to be replaced. Oh, and we’re still saving up to get the roof redone (20 years old and showing it). Oh and our air conditioning went out in July requiring a new SmartValve for $600. I love having a house, but it’s always something. :)
Martha says
My husband and I don’t own yet, but apartment plumbing is often just as bad (especially if your management isn’t top knotch). We both grew up without garbage disposals, but my mother now has one and puts EVERYTHING in it no problem. Egg shells, vegetable peels, meat trimmings, even pineapple core. Sooooo, when we moved in to our apartment we did the same thing. Well, those egg shells sprayed all over our ceiling in a gross, thick, white goop. It was simultaneously gross and hilarious. Reminded me of that episode of Boy Meets World when Cory fixes the sink after they get married.
YoungHouseLove says
Hahahah!
xo
s
Emily says
My husband built our house before we met. I came along a year later. Kids came along 3 years after that. We never used the kids bathrooms, but noticed an odor after my son began potty training and using his 2nd floor toilet. It wasn’t a constant odor, but every now and then. Turns out the pipe that was supposed to be going to the septic tank went straight under the house! Disgusting!! After some deep cleaning of the crawlspace, all is good;)
YoungHouseLove says
No way! Someone else had that going on too! Who knew that was a thing. So gross! Glad you figured it out!
xo
s
Rebecca says
Ahhh yesss…the joys of home ownership. After being in my 1961 home for 1 year we started to have kitchen sink drainage problems. I was lucky it hit its worst point right as I was hosting my first Thanksgiving and it resulted in 20 people only able to make use of the powder room for the cleaning of all the holiday dishes. Excellent!
This too was a negative pitch problem that could only be resolved by removing and replacing what was incorrectly installed 50+ years before. Which always made me wonder, how did the previous owners deal with this for so long? There is no way this problem just popped up out of nowhere on me.
YoungHouseLove says
Yes, I feel the same way! Previous owners must have dealt with this all the time or just not used that sink/shower/tub at all!
xo
s
HeatherB says
Lol at the view through the floor.
As to unexpected home ownership issues…the plumbing in my last house could have created weeks worth of posts for us. The most irritating part was that it was replenished while I was buying, and they did such a crummy job, I had at least 4 major repairs (by another plumber) in the first two years after moving in.
Most memorable would be the hot water hose under the kitchen sink bursting when I was about to walk out the door for a weekend getaway. Caused enough damage as was…can’t imagine if it had been 2 minutes later after I’d already walked out the door!
YoungHouseLove says
Holy cow, so lucky you were still home!
xo
s
Wendy (New Moms Talk) says
We lived in Mississippi for four years, as Dad was at Keesler and Ingalls Shipyard. During those years we had two memorable plumbing moments…
1. On Easter morning the hot water heater had issues. When we walked into the bathroom we burnt our feet on the tile. Ouch!
2. Another time it was cold enough to freeze the pipes. Many folks took a blow torch to thaw the pipes. Needless to say, we were thankful that Dad used a hair dryer at the joints.
Evie says
Glad THAT is over! Awwwww, what a mind-blowing experience for Burger, seeing Dad in a HOLE!!!!!!!!! So funny, and yet I feel for him–his world was altered that day!
YoungHouseLove says
BURGER WILL NEVER BE THE SAME!
xo
s
Meredith says
Just curious—did you not get a home warranty with this house? I bought my house shortly after yours and any issue that comes up in the first year is covered after I shell out the $75 fee for a professional to come out. I had an electrical issue but thankfully it was covered and he was able to fix it in one visit. (Electrical=much better than plumbing because no smells or spills are involved!)
YoungHouseLove says
Oh yes, we had one (it even covered a whole new furnace which we blogged about a while back) but it ran out before this fiasco.
xo
s
Meredith says
Oh duh, I forgot that you guys actually bought this house for several months before we (the strangers you share your life with) knew about it. :) Thanks for always being so sweet and answering our questions!
YoungHouseLove says
Haha, of course!
xo
s
Cathy C. says
I would vote electrical is worse because fire is involved :)
YoungHouseLove says
This is true! And structural is always scary (roof collapsing) too!
xo
s
haverwench says
Yeah, that was going to be my question too–“Shouldn’t this have been covered by your home warranty?”–before I rechecked your “new house FAQ” post and saw that you’d actually bought the house in 2012. See, if you had told us about it at the time, I would have remembered that. :-P :-) But at least you got the furnace covered under the warranty–I’m sure that would have been much more costly than this plumbing fix.
We have had no actual disasters at our house, but we are replacing the boiler in the spring (as soon as it’s warm enough to manage without it). We’re also debating whether we need to install some kind of backup for the heating system (either a generator to run the pump or a separate gas-fired heater, like a fireplace), since the power went out MULTIPLE times this month and left us in the dark and cold. Fortunately the longest of the outages was only 6 hours, so the house didn’t get too cold, but since we’ve lost power for as much as 2 days on previous occasions, we’re starting to think that we really need a backup in case we ever have to go without power for 24 hours or more during single-digit temperatures like we’ve had this month.
Kie says
I can totally relate. We bought our home in 2007 and the builders drilled into the drain pipe for our bathroom to hang the wire shelves. It wasn’t a problem until took the wire shelves out. We patched the drywall hole and continued our project…then we started hearing trickling water as the bathroom upstairs was used. We checked the closet but saw nothing. Sometime went by and I still had a nagging feeling every time the kids flushed or brushed their teeth. So I looked again. This time there was MOLD and the wall was soft from the water coming out of the hole for who know how long! Thankfully this wasn’t our first rodeo, so we patched the pipe ourselves. Homeownership is awesome isn’t it? lol… Glad you guys for a solution that was to invasive or expensive.
DawnSC says
Oh I can so sympathize with hidden issues! Barely 1 year into living in our very first home, we noticed some small cracks in the ceiling and a slight gap between the wall and the counter. Living in earthquake country, we chalked it up to that, but the paranoia that came along with my recently pregnant self made me call in the experts “just in case.” Turns out we had a HUGE hidden issue – the roof supports, which were up to code at the time, were not sufficient to support the vaulted ceiling and the new roof that had been done sometime before we moved in. So our roof was quite literally slowly collapsing on us (ceiling cracks) and pushing our walls outwards (gap between wall/counter). Fun times. We are now safely living under a ceiling that has a hidden steel beam running through it. So we spent a lot of Benjamins (i.e., there are 5 numbers involved :( ) just to make it look like we did nothing to our house except patch a ceiling crack. It’s worth owning, it’s worth owning… :-P
Sarah says
We’re actually in the process of buying a home that must have a similar layout to yours because the master bath is over the family room and there is definitely water damage on the family room ceiling. I’m sending this post to my husband so he can be a little more prepared for what we’re getting into. We’ve already gut-remodeled our current home so he is quite familiar with drywalling, and we were planning to redo that ceiling anyway, but now I’m wondering if we should call in a plumber to check things out before we make any drywall repairs. Very helpful, thanks! :)
YoungHouseLove says
Good luck Sarah!
xo
s
Laura C says
Great post, though I find myself fixated on the $650 tab for all that work! Sometimes I forget how much cheaper labor is outside of New York City. I just paid a plumber $350 to replace a shower handle and valve stem. It was a little complicated – the old stem snapped in two because it was so rusted and it was really hard to get out of the wall, but still. $350. For less than an hour of work. Ugh.
YoungHouseLove says
Oh man! There’s nothing like NYC (and other cities like Boston or Philly) pricing. I remember it well!
xo
s
Nicole Mullen says
Ugh, what a mess, but at least it’s all sorted now! You know you are a grown up when you have to worry about unblocking toilets! Speaking of drama – my washing machine went on fire today halfway through a spin cycle, the irony of a washing machine going on fire is all that is keeping me from crying right now!!
YoungHouseLove says
So scary! We had a dryer fire at my college when we were in dorms (in the basement of our building) and it freaked me out so much!
xo
s
Stephanie says
Oh ugh! We bought our house last April and are running into some issues ourselves. We have a similar plumbing situation that keeps, um, coming up that we will probably need to rectify, and getting hot water to our kitchen takes an inexplicably long time. I feel for you.
Kasey S. says
Something very similar happened to us about a month after we moved into our very first house this past year. It had been completely gutted before we bought it, and the plumbing was all brand new. But, we kept finding toilet paper and toilet backup right outside our house where the pressure valve is for the sewer. We didn’t realize what it was until our toilet started backing up inside the house and, like yours, into our shower. Not pleasant, to say the least. After a couple plumbers came to snake the line and assure us that it was just a major clog, a different plumber brought a camera snake. Our problem was while the plumbing in the house was brand new, the sewer line from the house to the sewer at the street was very old. As in Orangeburg pipe old (for those who don’t know, is made of many layers of something like tar paper pressed and glued together to form pipes). We had to replace the whole sewer line from the house to the street, ripping up most of our driveway in the process. So, after just buying our house and forking over $ 2,000 to have the pipe replaced, we are still parking our cars on the demolished asphalt.
Shannon says
I feel your pain. A couple of months ago I came home after a long day, opened the front door, and it was raining. INSIDE. Apparently the toilet fill valve in the second floor master bath had been leaking all day. The water was going through a light fixture into the entryway, and then down into the utility closet in the basement. There is so much more to this story, but let’s just say it involves a hole cut in the tiled bathroom wall, a RAT in the toilet drain, and an entryway ceiling that still isn’t fixed. And that master bath remodel has been moved to the top of the list. All I have to say is, thank goodness it was clean water leaking!
YoungHouseLove says
No. Not. A. Rat.
No.
xo
s
Janeidy says
We were loading up the car to head up Jacksonville, FL for Thanksgiving (we’re in Tampa)and as we were ready to head out, my husband notices that after my daughter flushed the toilet, it started backflowing from the tub!! YUCK!!! I had to end up getting a ride with my mom and sister (who were leaving in another car) and my husband had to stay behind and deal with the situation. We had to call a plumber and fork over $500. Ouch. There went his spending money for Black Friday! It was money well spent though because it’s been a couple years and no more problems. So I feel ya!
GreenInOC says
So glad you removed that final piece of wallpaper – that kind of stuff drives me bananas.
I truly believe drywall is an art and it’s best to let the artists do their work!
Sherry F says
You guys, that sucks! But I’m happy everything got fixed and you no longer have a skylight in your living room. This post was timely for me because the same thing just happened to us last week. I’ll spare you the details, but would you mind giving me your drywall guy’s contact info? (I live in Mechanicsville.)Thanks so much!
YoungHouseLove says
His name is Vaughn and he was awesome! He’s at 804-814-0477.
xo
s
Kara B says
We started laying down new bamboo hardwood flooring in our house about a month ago. We decided to put it in our laundry room so that the look would be consistent with the hallway in our second floor and we figured that it’d be easier to tackle getting it done with the rest of the hardwood flooring rather than coming back to it later with tile. There was some pretty yucky, yellowing, dated linoleum in there that I was excited to be gone. Unfortunately, when we ripped up the linoleum, we found lots of mold. Then more mold under the extra 1/4inch layer of plywood. So our flooring got stalled for a long weekend of cleaning that mess up. We borrowed a respirator to be safe and felt confident in doing the job ourselves since it seemed confined to about half of the laundry room. I googled what to do, scrubbed until my arms broke off with laundry detergent (yep that’s what google said) and then poured a bleach solution over the entire area. We left it to dry for about 4 days to be sure it was good and dry. While it was drying, we were able to finish painting the room. So a painful process and frustrating to be stalled on the flooring, but super glad that mold situation is gone. Ah the joys of home-ownership.
Heidi says
Woah! That’s a pretty major issue! We found a tiny leak in our basement and the result was a leaky wax seal on our half bath toilet. That was a relatively easy fix, but I was paranoid it was a symptom of a much larger issue. Glad you were able to fix this now before it grew to an even larger problem.
http://jax-and-jewels.blogspot.com
Monica says
I’m glad you were finally able to figure out the problem! We bought an renovated older home four years ago and up until last May everything was great until it got warm. We called in the pro’s to take a look at our AC and heat pump system and much to my amazement they were from 1985!! $3000 later we have a new system but my husband’s job is relocating us and we have listed our house. Hope the new home owners enjoy the brand new system! Grrr
HeatherB says
Any fears of other plumbing issues in the house? If they could screw up one thing that bad, what else might be lurking? Any thoughts about a whole house plumbing inspection?
YoungHouseLove says
YES! I have FEAR! Although it really helped to hear them say “well if nothing else is backing up it’s most likely localized” – and as annoying as this polar vortex is, it’s nice to know that we don’t seem to have any issues with pipes freezing (she says as she knocks on wood and crosses all appendages).
xo
s
Julie says
In my mom’s (3 story) house, one day the toilet on the main floor just spontaneously exploded. It spilled out onto the main floor a bit and FLOODED the basement and was seriously DISGUSTING. We lived towards the top of the hill and the plumber said he didn’t know how it happened from a physics standpoint because of where we lived. Obvi, a new toilet, massive cleaning, and new carpet for the downstairs were in order… We actually should have replaced the lights, too, but my mom ran out of patience and sold the house instead.
Caroline says
Oh, I am so sorry you had to deal with this – it’s always something! Last year, 4th of July weekend, we were visiting family 1,500 miles away, and we received a call that water was coming out the front door, garage door, and side (!) of our house. The water supply to the master toilet broke spectacularly – and of course it was upstairs. We had to move out for 6 months while the house was basically rebuilt. Sheetrock had to come out, all floors in the entire house had to be replaced, all cabinets had to be replaced, etc. All because a 50 cent piece of plastic that connected the water supply to the bottom of the toilet tank cracked. Good news: completely unexpected remodel, and our insurance company was terrific. Bad news: enormous pain in the neck.
Sandra says
This made me wonder if that insurance you purchases when you bought the house would cover it? I remembered you used it for the new furnace. Just wondering if you looked into that.
YoungHouseLove says
Ah yes, if only it hadn’t run out we would have at least tried! Boo! Although it technically was an existing condition (it had been like this for 30 years) so I doubt they would have covered much if anything (they just cover “new” issues that come up after you buy the house).
xo
s
Alli says
We had a few windows and our sliding door replaced in October. All the windows and door replaced were actually “newer” (our house is 1987 and these were replaced in mid 90’s). Anyway, they had all been installed incorrectly, basically just shoved into existing openings and not properly framed in. Our sliding door had no room for insulation around the jamb which explains the air leaking in we had always felt. Worst though was our window in our bedroom had been leaking into the wall from the exterior. The rim joist below it had almost rotted all the way through and even the sheathing, a bit of the subfloor, and studs were rotting below it. This leak also travelled to the window below it which we had thought before was an isolated problem. Thankfully we had “only” found mold around some of the drywall on that window. A little bleach and Killz later and it was gone.
This all added an additional two days to the work, but we have an amazing contractor we used and he ended up just charging us for materials!
Kari says
So sorry you guys had to go through that! I’m glad it’s fixed once and for all. What a relief.
Kristin says
While the problem itself stunk (no pun intended), I would have been all over being able to remove that piece of wallpaper! I’m happy to hear about reinforcing the joist & seeing the size of the ceiling hole. We’ve just had an engineer out to check out some wall cracks. He said it’s due mainly to our recent dry years (we’ll be putting in a sprinkler system this spring…for the house, not the grass!), but also said that improving some of the joists below the 2nd floor would help as well. I was afraid that might mean taking out the whole ceiling, but apparently not! That will be added to the list right next to removing the popcorn from the ceilings!
bella says
Oh, I can completely relate. And in the end, all you can say is, it’s only money, and now I know it’s fixed. I mean, it’s hard to get there, but you do.
Three months having I bought my own condo, on a Wednesday I came home to a leaking water heater. I had a new one installed Thursday. Then, that same evening, my upstairs neighbor was washing her clothes, and I came to find very quickly that we shared a main drain when all her wash water came bursting into my laundry closet washer drain. Wow, I was a wreck, but all turned out well, when the guy that installed the water heater came the neck morning and snaked our drain for free.
I tell the entire tale in a blog post, probably too long for you to read, but someone might find company in their misery by reading it and knowing that, this too shall pass. ha.
http://foobella.blogspot.com/2010/02/water-logged.html
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks to everyone for sharing in our misery. You guys rock.
xo
s
Laurie says
Oh good gravy. Plumbing issues are really intimidating to me because I’m always afraid of horrible solutions like having to get all the pipes replaced or something.
Thank goodness you were just starting your makeover so you didn’t have everything already pretty and it got damaged.
That drywall guy did an amazing job! I wish he was in my area!
Emily M says
The beginning of your story sounded eerily familiar to something we went through this past summer (sewage backup in the toilet which then spread to the bathtub, etc.), but ours had a very different ending. After lots of inconclusive explorations by plumbers, we finally just started digging in our yard and discovered a septic tank that hand’t been emptied in over thirty years (an estimation based on talking with past owners and the fact that the sludge in the tank was nearly solid)! Our house had been connected to the city sewer, but only our washer and dryer and utility sink in the basement were connected to the sewer; either the plumber/previous owner had taken the easy and cheap way out, or maybe the fact that the house was largely still connected to an active septic tank was never passed on through successive owners, but it was quite a headache! (major understatement there). Glad to hear that your plumbing issue, while not desirable by any means, wasn’t TOO too awful!
Christy says
Oh the joys of home ownership! If it makes you feel any better here’s a “Oh the joys of home ownership” tale that will make you glad it was just a little plumbing fix.
A terrible storm lead to a very large tree falling on our very small house. About 750 of the 900 square feet had to be redone after that. New support beams in the attic, new roof, new ceilings, a couple of new walls, new floors, new furniture… Fast forward a year and now the the termites that used to live in the city’s tree that fell on the house decided to take up refuge in our house. Those new walls? Yep, they had to go to make way for treatment and new studs. To top it off the hot water heater blew at some point during this, too. Fortunately, that lives outside in a utility shed. :)
Sometimes home ownership is like the gift that keeps on giving and you just have to laugh when you come across another, “Seriously, really, you’re kidding right?”
YoungHouseLove says
Holy bummer!
xo
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Mary McG says
Not even 1 week after we moved in, we had a huge plumbing problem. Our side sewer had to be replaced all the way out to the street. Luckily the city also had a blockage and so they took care of the part that was in the street and saved us 10,000. We “only” had to pay 4,000….In other words always have your side sewer inspected before you move into a home. it is worth the 150-200 that it would cost.
YoungHouseLove says
Holy cow!
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Mary says
Oh man, plumbing issues are not fun! My husband and I had a leaky toilet in the basement when we moved in, and eventually discovered that whoever installed it decided that many layers of vinyl flooring between the wax ring and the toilet (cut in perfect rings) would be a good idea. At least that was an easy (and inexpensive) fix! Clearly some people are just better off calling in professionals…
Sara says
Not fun at the time, but I totally belly laughed at the incredulation I imagined on someone’s face at finding that…
Kara B says
Oh and speaking of home warranty – you can renew that bad boy every year as long as you want it. That is what we chose to do since our house is 17 years old and everything is original, except for what we’ve replaced ourselves.
YoungHouseLove says
We actually talked about renewing it but stupidly said “if things were going to break they would have broken right now, right? It will hopefully be smooth sailing from here on out…” – famous last words! Haha!
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Kate says
Been there, smelled that. At our old house, we had sewage back up into the basement…not tons, but let’s be honest — ANY bit is too much. One friendly plumber (and $300) later, we vanquished golgath the s%$@ demon (anything that fierce needs a name.)
p.s. How did this article manage to avoid “A game of thrones” pun??
YoungHouseLove says
Seriously! How did John miss that opportunity?!
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Sarah says
That’s no fun! And of course I googled Trainspotting bathroom…. why do I never listen?! Ick! haha
adele says
Vaughn calling you Topanga is so awesome!! You know you can trust a plumber with a solid knowledge of pop culture :D
YoungHouseLove says
Seriously. It was the best moment of my day. He was hilarious.
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Leslie R. says
We’ve had the toilet dilemma. We bought a house on a handshake for a seriously reduced price and we knew most of the imperfections. Except one. The hall bathroom had this horrible smell. When my husband crawled under the house to look at the plumbing – yikes! – it wasn’t connected to the drain. – Every flush just flowed under the house! And to make things worse, the other toilet (on a tile floor similar to y’alls) – rocked. #beentheresmelledthat
YoungHouseLove says
That is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard! You guys are heroes for dealing with that!
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Jane says
I have no home-owner horror stories… yet. I just purchased my first house (last week!!) and I must say, this sort of story scares the willies out of me. I do anticipate some bumps in the road but I’m convinced that owning my first home, and all the joys that go with it, out weight moments like these…. right??
YoungHouseLove says
TOTALLY! How else can we explain being on our third fixer-upper? Showing an old house some attention is a love like no other!
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Diane Taylor says
Ugh – I’m glad your site doesn’t have smell-a-vision too, lol! And yes, I actually did Google the Trainspotting reference and almost spit out my coffee. My husband is a general contractor and has been for 39 years and even he would not tackle plumbing issues! He knows enought to be very dangerous – and we have had many a tale in our 1922 house to back that up (no pun intended). I hope you get your current issue resolved soon!
~dt~
Wendy [New Moms Talk] says
We spent four years in Mississippi as a kid when Dad was stationed at Keesler and working at Ingalls Shipyard. During those four years, we had two memorable plumbing moments…
Once it became cold enough for the pipes to freeze. Many folks “thawed” the pipes by taking a blowtorch to the pipes which were in the attic. Needless to say the fire department was very busy, and we were thankful for our Dad’s thawing the pipes with a hair dryer at the joints.
Also, on Easter morning the hot water heater had issues. When we walked into the bathroom, we burnt our feet on the tile. Ouch!
Sally G. says
Yeah, you never know what it will be next. Shortly after we moved into our house last Fall, the basement bathroom’s electricity just stopped working. I went in one day and the lights, fan, nothing was working. We had just had the house inspected and there hadn’t been any issues, and the breaker wasn’t tripped, so I thought maybe a connection was just loose somewhere and I checked the GFCI and light switch, both A-OK. We decided we’d have to call an electrician to sort it out, but the holidays were coming up and we were going out of town, so we procrastinated.
Lo and behold, one day I come downstairs and all the lights in the bathroom are on. Turns out that the basement bathroom GFCI is somehow connected to the GFCI in our upstairs bathroom (which is on the other end of the house!) Apparently if you trip the upstairs bathroom outlet the basement bathroom electricity goes too, until you reset the one upstairs.
On the bright side, while we wait to call an electrician (we have some other projects coming up where we’ll need an electrician anyways) my husband is excited because we can prank our friends.
Anesha says
We busted a “U Joint” in our “A Coil” in out inside HVAC unit. We were all at home when the explosion happened. There was a loud POP then a ear splitting HISSSSS that blew freon and dust all over the house. I thought the unit caught on fire. I was grabbing kids and my husband was getting the fire extinguisher. When the dust settled (pun intended) and the HVAC repair guy arrived we found that because they changed the type of freon that the units excepted we’d have to replace both the inside AND outside unit…$6000 later!! Thank the lawd for emergency funds! It get’s hot in the south…AC constitues an emergency!