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).
Mya Bergen says
Here’s a tale for ya: One night my husband and I were awoken by a scratching, clawing sound from our ceiling and a strong odor of skunk! After one sleepless night thinking we had a skunk in our attic, and one phone call to pest control, we discovered it was just a raccoon who had been sprayed trying to claw its way through the shingles! We were very happy to replace a few shingles since it meant neither of us would be taking a tomato sauce bath :)
YoungHouseLove says
Yikes!
xo
s
Joy K says
This fall we were having some weird power surges at our house where the power would go out, then dim for minutes at a time, then come back. It happened for an extended time on a Saturday afternoon, I called the power company to see if it was their issue. They send a couple guys out who took pity on me and dug up some spots in my yard to see if they could find the fault. It took them a couple hours in the dark and cold to decide that it was possibly a faulty neutral line. They connected my house to the front meter by a (very very long) set of copper wires (which was safe, since it was the neutral line)as a “band-aid” to keep the power stable until Monday when we could get an electrician.
The electrician came, dug some more holes and said our power lines were being chewed by gophers and we had several faults. They recommended that we run new line through some tubing to protect it. Meanwhile, it’s fall in Minnesota and the ground is quickly freezing, so they had to try to squeeze us in.
So, while we were waiting for word on when they could get around to us, I stupidly turned on my clothes dryer and knocked out power to my house and two of my neighbors. The power company came out again, fixed the issue with that, and advised me that I my house was now running on half power. I immediately contacted the electrician, who agreed to come out and run the necessary power lines on top of the ground until they could come by at the end of the week and dig it in. $3,300.00 later, and the problem is solved, save for our sprinkler system that they will have to come back in the Spring to fix because they had to slice through it to run the wiring.
Kelly says
Oh boy! We have not had that happen yet! But, when we bought our house, our sewage bill was so high; we had to replace three toilets that were more efficient. Your friend, Katie from Bower Power had a leak like yours…
http://www.bowerpowerblog.com/2013/11/this-is-about-to-get-nasty/
Don’t know if you read her dilemma!
YoungHouseLove says
Oh yes, I called her during ours and she was so lucky that she could just open that pump in the yard and let it drain out! Since ours wasn’t an issue with the line outside like that (and was under the toilet within the ceiling) our fix was sadly not as simple. We did laugh that we both had plumbing issues within a short amount of time though!
xo
s
Anne G. says
I think you may have just solved the problem we’ve been having at our 2-story townhouse! We had rented it out after first buying it to a family with 3 small children. They kept complaining of toilet and shower plumbing problems, and since we found a small plastic toy in the toilet the first time they complained, we figured curious kiddos were the issue. But, then they called us to say there was a leak in the dining room ceiling (which is right below the master bath) so we called in a plumber and he thought the problem was a seal on the toilet, so he fixed that. Well, then the tenants moved out and we started doing some upgrades to get ready to move in ourselves. That’s when we noticed the dining room light fixture had shorted out and my husband found a pool of water in the transformer! We called a handyman friend and cut a small hole in the ceiling to look for leaks, but didn’t find anything. We hadn’t figured out what the problem was yet. But, I’m thinking that your problem might be our problem! I am excited that we might actually have resolved the issue, though not excited about the possible plumber’s bill involved. Anyway, thanks for the post and fingers crossed this resolves our issues just as it did yours.
YoungHouseLove says
Good luck Anne! Hope it’s solved soon!
xo
s
Dawn says
Oh my dears, I could spin a yarn 10 miles long exploring my ‘joys of home ownership’- pretty impressive since we’ve only been in the house for a year and a half. This year alone (we’re talking the last month) we’ve experienced dead mice in the walls, water in the basement, and the main circuit breaker going out. Good times!
Brittany M says
UGH! I just hate when stuff like that happens!!!! I don’t have any plumbing tales to tell but maybe that’s because I’m too afraid to investigate enough to find out. My house is over 70 years old and I’m terrified there might be plumping issues down the line. :(
But just two weeks ago we unexpectedly had to save our doggie from impending doom; he decided one of his stuffed animals was edible, which cost us over $2,000. He’s doing very well…back to his 145lb lap dog self.
Feel better now? ;-)
<3 Brittany
YoungHouseLove says
Oh no Brittany! I’m so sorry he had to go through that, but so glad he’s doing well and back to his sweet 145 lb self :)
xo
s
Lindsay M says
Haha, one year my 90 lb greyhound thought my 6 ft white feather boa (for Halloween) looked just like the mechanical rabbit he chased on the race track…same story, 2k later, he survived. I won’t get into details, but I’m sure my neighbors think I’m super strange.
YoungHouseLove says
Oh man!
xo
s
Sarah W. says
I’m sure you’ve heard your fill of horror stories already this morning, but I wanted to share too. My sister had some sort of problem with the pipes in her upstairs bathroom and when the plumber took a look, they realized that when the house was built, the pipes were installed and then they poured concrete over top of them to install the tile in!
It was quite the ordeal fixing that. Yours sounds much grosser though!
Stephanie says
In October we found water pooling in our driveway. Turns out it was the piping that went from the main to our house. We had to have part of our driveway ripped open and our front yard too! Our driveway has been repaired, but our yard is still a mess, we will have lots to do when this cold weather finally goes away.
KLL says
I am fairly certain that a full plumbing overhaul is in my future in the upstairs bathroom as well.
A few weeks ago, during Polar Vortex: The Original, the cold water pipe froze. During that time,
While trying to determine an exact location, and keeping the cold water handle turned ‘on’ just in
case, I discovered that turning on the hot water in the tub made water come out of the sink faucet.
And then, I discovered that somehow turning the hot water on in the sink enabled the toilet to
refill itself (it had drained during a pre-frozen pipe flush and was unable to refill due to the cold water
not working).
Even typing this makes my head hurt. A lot.
YoungHouseLove says
Oh you guys, you’re so sweet to share your misery with us. We love you. We really are all in this crazy home vs. us thing together.
xo
s
Andrea says
Oh the joys of home-ownership :)
We bought our first house a couple years ago and not even six months after moving in (in the middle of winter) our water heater/furnace hybrid decided to turn our unfinished basement into a sauna. It was spewing steaming water everywhere.
Soon our whole house was steamy – and not in a good way. We ended up needing a dehumidifier, a new furnace and a new water heater.
We love our old home (built in the 1920’s) but we’ve definitely had our share of surprises.
Good luck!
Ruth says
I will give you a virtual high five for solidarity! We just bought our first house in November (right before the cold weather hit). About a week later (when the cold weather hit) we discovered that both squirrels and mice had scouted our home out as a warm winter haven….and we’ve been trapping ever since. “oh the joys of home ownership.” We’ve called in some professionals to look at the situation, but the cost of the repairs (which we know we will HAVE to have professionally done) are high enough that we’re saving our pennies for those and trying to oust the rascals ourselves. wah wah. So you’re not alone – in fact I have to tell you that it does make me feel a little better that experienced homeowners like you guys still run into these totally unexpected pitfalls (sorry!)! I have to add, though, that the slope of our plumbing was also called into question in our inspections, and we had it checked and re-checked and haven’t had any issues so far, so I’m going to triple cross my fingers, toes, and legs now….
Lindsay M says
Oh you’re not alone. My husband is in the military and the rule is that everything goes wrong when they’re gone! From a leaking 2nd floor master shower (I though a dog had an “accident” on our living room floor) to malfunctioning gas meters and waking up when it’s 10 degrees outside and the house is at 45! We, too, have had the lovely “giant hole in our living room ceiling to fix plumbing issues” and $$$ check for the emergency technicians. I’m sure others who’s spouses travel can relate!
And it always happens while he’s away :-)
But would you trade it for renting?
YoungHouseLove says
Heck no! We love fixer uppers, even when they don’t love us back apparently. Haha!
xo
s
Mary says
We live in the country and have a septic tank. Back during the massively cold weather we had earlier this month, water started coming up in our basement. After self-diagnosing got us nowhere we called in the plumber. He had me intentionally make the water back up (courtesy of the washer and the tub). It was horrifying, water was everywhere and it was gurgling in the toilet. Turns out it was a septic issue that we’re still working to straighten out. Ug.
Glad you got your plumbing problems fixed!
Marianne says
Don’t you hate it when that happens! I hate it when I have to spend money on things you can show off ;-) The drywall guy did a great job though! I bet you can’t see it once it is painted.
Lori says
Oh, the joys. Where to start?
Biggie: Our fiberglass shower stall in the master was installed without a concrete pan under it, so the drain plumbing flexes, which means it eventually worked itself loose and started leaking all over the kitchen.
Eleven outdoor lights fitted with 100-watt floods ran through a 650-watt dimmer switch. I burned myself on the screws on the light switch the first few days in here.
The attic furnace was installed so the filter is on the bottom. There was no flooring from the access point to over to the furnace, but the little bit of flooring they did install around the furnace went right up to the furnace such that you couldn’t access the filter to change it. We’ve since got the handyman to install some flooring so you don’t have to balance on the studs and to give us access to the filter.
The fold-down steps for that attic access point are installed in such a way that they had to cut off the bottom two steps so that they would fold out without hitting the wall. You have to prop a chair underneath the lowest step to support the whole thing.
The ceiling drywall in the garage was installed with nails instead of screws. The previous homeowner stashed a ton of junk up there between the studs, putting the weight of a zillion half-empty paint cans etc. directly on the drywall, which partially came down in the middle of the night one night and left big dents on the trunk of my car.
I could go on and on and on, but I won’t.
Drywall is one of those things it’s always worth hiring out if you can find a good drywall guy. They do a much, much better job than I ever could, and they’re reasonably priced. Our downstairs guest bathroom has awful wallpaper applied directly over the drywall. We had a similarly gross plumbing issue in there for which they had to remove part of the walls surrounding the toilet. The drywall guy who came to finish the repair said we’d never get that wallpaper off of there neatly, and that when we’re ready he’d get it all out, reskim all the walls, and paint it all, too, for such a ridiculously low price that I can’t even believe it. As much as I like to DIY, I’ll be taking him up on his offer.
(Sorry for writing a novel. I get worked up.)
Marlena says
NooooOOOoooo! Anything bathroom related has me running for the hills. Fortunately, I have a husband un-deterred by life’s, um, necessities. Glad this was fixed! But I feel you on the pain! Our water heater went kaput the week of Christmas while we had company, and while we have a home warranty, we still had to form over $525. Not the full amount, but still a hefty chunk of change around the holidays.
One thing a friend of mine told me years ago has been very helpful in terms of owning a house. He was in banking for 20 years, and said, “owning a home is not an investment. It’s a lifestyle choice.” He’s so right. It’s a choice of where and how to spend your money. One that I love – in owning a home – but it can be frustrating when each item like this is equal to a plane ticket or chunk of vacation!
Jane says
Glad you got that fixed and its out of the way now. I had a wall paper miracle last weekend. Our masterbath was covered with wallpaper and was peeling in a few places. I ripped up a corner to see what would happen. And just like that, the whole strip came off. Withing 15 mins , the entire area’s wallpaper came down. I was pleasantly surprised!
I have 2 questions for you guys – The walls looks pretty neat and I hardly see any glue residue..Should I do the scrubbing with water/vinegar thing? Can I just go ahead and paint on top ?
2nd question – I remember you mentioning that you use a short handle brush for cutting in ..but is that what you use to paint trim too ?
Thanks so much!
YoungHouseLove says
You lucky dog! I would definitely scrub with vinegar just in case (we always do that step) and then you can let it dry and paint! Good luck!
xo
s
Andrea says
I don’t even know where to start. I get why you need to hear that it’s not just you, I have felt the exact same way.
December was the worst month I can remember, in terms of house-related disaster pile-ups. After replumbing basically our entire house to solve a leak coming from under a bathroom floorboard, the leak came BACK. And we were like “hold on, didn’t we just fork out a pretty penny to fix this??” Turns out we had a cracked drain pipe that had been leaking into our walls, ceilings, a guest room closet, and eventually made its way underneath our wood floors. It was a disaster. We had to call homeowners insurance to cover it, and thank god they did because the total bill came out to somewhere around 22 thousand dollars.
Oh did I mention that we were in the middle of a refinance when disaster struck? And that they wouldn’t close the loan until the house was fully fixed? And that Christmas was mere weeks away? And that a woman ran a red light and t-boned my car 5 days before Christmas?
Worst month ever. It was an avalanche of bad, and I’m so glad it’s over.
Incidentally, I’m curious if plumbing issues crop up more in two-story homes? Or is there just more costly damage when they do? This has never occurred to me before.
Anyway, you two are not alone. Oh my gosh, if a month goes by without some costly home repair I consider it a miracle.
YoungHouseLove says
Oh yes, I think they’re probably the same in any house (pipes can be finicky) but it’s cheaper and easier to access plumbing when it’s in the crawl space or the attic instead of between the ceiling/floor in a two-story house.
xo
s
Emily says
I just had a plumbing problem too, but fortunately mine was covered by my home warranty. My house was built in 1950 and drum traps for the plumbing were apparently the pipes used then, though no longer. My tub was draining slowly and I snaked and plunged to try and fix it before adding chemical cleaner… and ended up with water pouring out my basement ceiling. The cap of the drum trap had corroded and popped off. Now I have a hole in my basement ceiling too, though I think I’m going to replace it with an access panel in case that area needs to be accessed again. Plumbers said the drywall had been patched there before!
Farrell says
I feel your pain! And you are not the only one, which I’m sure you know after 3 homes. My husband and I are just a little over a year into our first home and had to replace the entire heating/cooling system this past summer. We knew the system was old (20+ years) when we bought the house, it was original to the house. But our realtor and inspector assured us a repairs would be covered under the home warranty. When it finally crapped out on us, the home warranty company refused to pay for repairs because we must have done something to damage it. Are you kidding?!?! We’ve never touched it, as soon as it quite blowing cool air we called. Its over 20 years old for crying out loud. So the repairs fell on us, and in the process, we realized that repairs would just be a band aid for system that needed to be replaced. So to the tune of $10.6 thousand buckaroos and 4 weeks without air in August, in South Carolina summer heat, we finally got ourselves a dependable unit/s. Man, those are not the fun home expenses, like remodeling a kitchen!:) Love you guys, and glad the plumbing issue is permanently fixed. I know how good that feels. (sorry this is long, I still love to vent! :))
Jamie says
Glad to hear we are not the only ones with plumbing problems in our old house! We just went through a similar drama… it ended up with a few lovely specimens on our back patio after Andy had to let out the main drain. #SickMeOut Tree roots are to blame, and that’s a fancy (expensive) fix of redoing all of our pipes. But, we called the pros for a good snake job from the main drain to the city sewage line and we are back in business until the roots strike again, ha!
Kingsmom says
We had a similar issue recently in our 30+ year old house we bought just over a year ago. I was doing laundry and heard a weird water noise only to find the sewage coming up in the guest shower and laundry sink.
Luckily my husband is a plumber but we spent the rest of the day digging the main line in the yard only to find a giant cluster you know what of uphill slopes and weird angles.
I think after all that digging we could have installed a swimming pool.
Darcy says
Oy…that really stinks. The idea of the whole backing up thing too – gag. I can’t really think of anything major we’ve dealt with in the 6 years we’ve had this home. A couple of annoyances: first year some sort of coupling went out on the hot water heater, so it wouldn’t stay lit. It was a new heater and we still had the home warranty. I think we just had to pay the ‘deductible’ for the plumber to come fix it…but he had to order parts so it took a couple of days. My husband was out of town on business, so I had to handle it all myself. When I talked to him on the phone that night, he had the never to complain about the showerhead in his hotel room. I was like, “really?!”
We had a leak in the front yard under the lawn, that I thankfully didn’t mess with – my husband did all the work there. It finally reached critical mass when our water bill for 1 month during the August of 2012 was nearly $300!!
Sheila says
We had a leaky 2nd floor bathroom problem in our last house too. It was above our basement half-bath and leaked down onto the toilet below. I’m afraid to admit how long it took me to clue in to what was going on. I kept thinking the mess downstairs was just my young son’s awful aim. But no. It was the toilet above leaking into the floor/ceiling and then through the drywall ceiling of the basement bathroom, right over the toilet. My husband’s solution? Rip a big hole in the ceiling below to take a look. Which then became demolish-and-completely-renovate the basement bathroom while also re-doing all the piping from the kitchen and bathroom above. But it doesn’t stop there – the plumbers also had to jackhammer out the foundation to replace some of the pipes under the basement floor too. Eek! The pipes were so awful though – you couldn’t even see light through all the buildup much less imagine any water getting through. But on the plus side, we got a new bathroom in the basement and solved the slow-draining since the day we moved in upstairs bathtub.
Crystal says
Oh I feel your pain. We have to have a 2 different plumbers come out and snake our pipe too. I only wish the waste would of backed up into our tubs, inside it leak under the flooring and down throw the ceiling cause us some serious water damage. All three of our bathrooms need remodeled. We originally thought only one was damage, but turns out all three have been. One was really bad, so we had that one redone and a half bathroom. Our master bathroom needs done, probably later this year.
http://www.beautiful-haven.com/2014/01/kids-bathroom-reveal.html
http://www.beautiful-haven.com/2014/01/half-bathroom-reveal.html
You can check our remodels here.
YoungHouseLove says
Really pretty Crystal!
xo
s
Kelly says
This story still makes my stomach churn but you asked :) We live in a house built in 1905 and the layout is completely strange but we’re working on that. Our downstairs bathroom is right off the kitchen (the back of the toilet shares a wall with some cabinets). Well, over the course of many years the sewer line started deteriorating when finally (somehow!) a hole broke through the wall and lower cabinet…. filling our lower cabinet glass dishes with sewage. I still can’t get over how nasty that was and how many times I cleaned those dishes which I begged my husband to just throw away. old homes = no bueno
Paige says
We downsized from our Barbie Dream House to a sweet ranch this summer. We knew we had a few plumbing issues to attend to (thanks to our home inspector) but they were deemed modest. Imagine our surprise when we were told that the entire bathroom needed to be replaced. NOT the minor expense we planned for. Our new bathroom is swoon-worthy, but I loved the original boomerang countertop, deep sink, and grey fixtures–I really was prepared to adore them for years. Sigh…
Lisa says
I’m sure someone else has shared this, but for toilet clogs, my fool-proof method (which I know as it turns out wouldn’t have worked for your wonky pipes) is pouring a bucket of hot water into the toilet. Hold the bucket about 3-4 feet above the toilet, and pour and the clog will always give way, no matter what. Now, I no longer even bother with plunging. I learned this trick when I was pregnant, because the bowels do crazy horrible things when you’re prego… right, Sherry? ;-)
YoungHouseLove says
We have used that with success on a clogged sink a while back! The boiling water literally cooked the vegetables that were clogging the disposal and fixed it!
xo
s
Julie says
Long story short, the day of a big party to kick off my 40th birthday weekend extravaganza, the ceiling and wall of our kitchen, directly below the upstairs bathroom (I.e. The kid’s bathroom) flooded down the wall. When my husband went to investigate, he saw what looked like a thumb in the toilet bowl. Turned out to be Barbie’s thigh. Yep, my three youngest conspired to rid our house of that wretched influence by flushing Barbie down the toilet. Suprisingley, all but her thigh went down but it caused quite the overflow! We quickly ripped down the damaged drywall and stapled brown paper over the mess then proceeded with the celebrating. I’d be ashamed to tell you how long we took to DIY the walls and ceilings after that. Let’s just say there is a reason I don’t blog about our house, and why I love reading yours! FYI, I only had to fix a small strip of ceiling and I will NEVER do that again. That is why I still live with popcorn in other rooms of the house!
Katie says
Was it just the sink/shower/tub combo in the actual bathroom or would your 2nd sink also cause this? I wonder if the previous owners just abandoned that bathroom and started using that 2nd sink instead. May explain why there are 2 in your bedroom.
YoungHouseLove says
Second sink! We actually never use the original sink in there. Like we haven’t turned it on once. So we use the nook (John would shave there and the tub would back-up… so gross!).
xo
s
Julie says
Guess I should add, good luck with your little boy! You have great fun ahead of you that you will totally love!! Can’t wait to virtually meet him.
YoungHouseLove says
Aw thanks Julie!
xo
s
Valentina says
Here’s what happened to us once:
The toilet flapper wore out and failed at exactly the same time as the toilet got backed up when someone flushed too much tp at once. As a result, water kept flowing into the clogged toilet and within seconds, onto the floor. In just a few seconds that it took us to shut down the water supply to the toilet, the water dripped from the 2nd floor bathroom into the kitchen on the first floor and further down, into the finished basement. It was flowing into the kitchen through the ceiling light fixture, which happened to be an up-facing bowl (pretty big one, they sell them at Ikea). Thankfully, the bowl didn’t break. But as my husband and our plumber were taking it down, it was a scene to behold: balancing a huge, heavy glass bowl of toilet water above their heads. Eventually, it tipped and waterfalled all over my poor hubby. I bet, if had a camera in my hands at the time, we would’ve won America’s Funniest Videos, but it wasn’t at all funny for us at the time. We had to hire professionals to repair the kitchen ceiling and bought a new light fixture. The toilet was duly plunged and repaired. The flapper was only a couple bucks to replace; how we wish we had done it earlier. Oh, and the basement didn’t suffer much damage, because I threw towels onto the carpet before much water got to it and the ceiling has exposed beams, no drywall there.
YoungHouseLove says
Oh man!
xo
s
Felicity says
Think toddler tooth brush…think “uh oh ” as toothbrush accidentally gets flushed…not for the joy of flushing it, but because pregnant mom had to pee during tooth brushing session and these things happen. I’m sure you can relate! No immediate problem…Several months later, while family is living overseas, house sitters call with a problem…because septic system is involved, backhoes are mentioned…husband flies home, and thanks to a local expert , toothbrush stuck across pipe causing a giant paper dam is retrieved!
Amanda says
We had no issues in our 100 year old row house until a ceiling leak last summer. That turned into us having most of the house repointed by a great guy who also pointed out that our porches need some work, a gutter is leaking, and a stone mantle needs a renovation. It never ends!
Melissa says
About a year after moving into our ranch, I was upstairs minding my own business when my husband yelled from the basement, “Get some buckets now and put on your Muck boots!!!!!” (yes, that statement was actually said with 5 exclamation points). I ran downstairs to find our main line to the septic tank was spewing into our basement…and by spewing, I mean it looked like a waterfall feature, but less “ohh, awww, how pretty” and more like “OMG! This is not happening!” Come to find out the previous owners had tried to “fix” the pipe previously, but must have just used whatever PVC pipe they had lying around because it was about 2″ too short and had collapsed. Luckily, my hubby was able to fix it that same day with a quick trip to our local hardware store, but I spent the next week drying out the basement and sanitizing it within an inch of its life. There are been many other times I have thought, “I hate being a homeowner,” but this one is by far the worst.
Megean says
Not 5 minutes after my husband and I had unlocked the door to our first home together, he broke the toilet. By break, I mean he used it and it, well, didn’t work. That debacle led to us realizing that nearly all of the plumbing in the house had backed up due to the old cast iron pipes corroding and capturing years and years worth of “foreign” materials including a jumbo sized magic marker. This caused us to replace ALL of the plumbing in the house to avoid any future situations. It’s definitely a memory I’ll never forget being that it was somewhat comical and sad at the same time.
Melissa says
Thank you guys for sharing this. It’s always nice as a homeowner that you’re not the only one experiencing problems! When we first moved into our newly flipped home in December all of the issues came out of the woodwork within our 1st 3 days of living in the house and ran the spectrum of plumbing, electrical, heating – you name it!
BeeBelle says
In high school, my daughter was able to go on a wonderful choir trip to Europe for a week on spring break. She has a basement bedroom, and without her home, nobody had a reason to go down there. The day before she returned, I went down to do something and the carpet squished… we had a pipe that had frozen and just thawed, so it had leaked into the basement for a couple of days. We had to pick her up at the airport and say “Welcome home! You can’t go in your room for a week. Hope you weren’t looking forward to sleeping in your own bed again.” It was covered by our homeowner’s insurance. Big fans, minor drywall patching, carpet all dried, restretched, and cleaned, lots of repainting.
Amber says
Oh yes, we’ve had our share of 2-story plumbing woes. A few months after moving in, we noticed water leaking out of our fireplace bricks when the upstairs shower was used. Apparently, the plumbing was run through the fireplace (not chimney), and the weight of the brick eventually cracked the cast iron pipes. They tore up half our living room ceiling to reroute all that plumbing and send it down a wall beside the fireplace. While our house was torn up, we decided to remodel that bathroom, have the popcorn ceiling scraped, and open up a wall in our living room. Might as well go for it all at once, right?!? Thankfully, our home insurance covered a good chunk of the cost. Did you get that lucky?
YoungHouseLove says
I wish! Lucky duck!
xo
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Allison says
*laugh* Poor folks! We had a slow draining tub for years. Years…like 10. Finally the pipe conked out (leaking over 2 floors, boo!) and we hired a plumber. He came, cut a hole in our ceiling removed the rotten pipe and removed a PLASTIC little person! (The grandma, I believe) The ceiling hole he left and my hubs decided to patch it himself (he is a remodeling genius…but slow). Anyways. It took 6 months for him to get to it (we had many little babies and other projects going on). During that time, a person on the upstairs toilet could have a coversation with the person on the downstairs toilet. There were no visuals…but it was, ahem, all very audible! Kept our overnight guests to a minimum! Glad your toilet is fixed though. Super ick.
Andrea says
I’m so glad to see some love for your drywaller! My dad has been a drywaller for over 35 years now and it’s amazing to me how fast he can turn out perfect walls and ceilings. I’m very proud of him and I’m happy to hear how much you appreciate good drywall! :)
YoungHouseLove says
Totally! It’s a complete art!
xo
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Alison says
Love how the bathroom turned out!! Where do you find a shower curtain that long??
YoungHouseLove says
We found it a few years ago on amazon.com (searching for 95″ length or extra long shower curtain).
xo
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Lindsay says
Almost this exact same thing just happened to us. In fact, the plumber came on Monday and (we hope) it’s all fixed. Ours started with a normal clog which you would think could be solved by our good old friend, Mr. Plunger. However, just like you guys, he wasn’t cutting it. As soon as he got to work, grossness ensued in the bathtub. We googled and youtubed the heck out of our problem, and after buying a mechanical 3 foot auger from the hardware store and that not working, I found out the next step was the electric auger thing and that’s where I drew the line. You can rent them at Home Depot, but honestly, we were all like, nope, not doing it. This was just too much of a messy job for us. The plumber charged $75/hour and he was done in a little over that, so it was well worth it. Sounds like your issue was more involved due to the plumbing being wrong in the first place and because of it being a two story house (ours is a one story). But you’re not alone–we are with you when it comes to the highs and lows of home ownership. :)
Melody says
Thanks J & S for keepin it real!
Our last home, built in 1959, still remains a mystery to us. We had our share of plumbing “fun”, and were always concerned with the 60′ white pines in our front yard potentially causing plumbing woes. It never happened in our 5 years at the house, but we had terrible water pressure. My poor husband spent so many weekends redoing/checking our sprinklers, trying to figure out what the heck was happening. We eventually put in a pool and new sod (because nothing holds up with pool excavating equip). That’s when we discovered 2 SETS of sprinkler lines all over the yard. When we noticed this, half our backyard had newly paved pool concrete, so we never got to the bottom of this. I’m thankful for a newer home, with normal sprinkler systems, but I know we’ll have our fair share of “fun” repairs to make as well.
Eric says
Gotta love the leaks! We had a (we thought) small one in our kitchen that we had a plumber fix (leaky supply pipe to washer in adjacent laundry closet. We decided to replace the vinyl floor from when we bought it (foreclosure) with the same laminate we put down elsewhere in the first floor. Once we took out the slightly damaged cabinet, we realized the leak was still there, much more substantial damage, and coming from the second floor! It thankfully was dripping down the insulation and not throughout the ceiling, but still turned a one week floor replacement to a now 3-months-going renovation!
We have a small ceiling hole from the repair as well, and I noted the info for the drywall guy above. Just curious (and sorry if it was contained elsewhere in the comments): who did you guys use for the plumbing repair?
Thanks!
YoungHouseLove says
We actually didn’t love our experience with the plumber, so John and I chatted about it and decided we don’t feel comfortable recommending them. But we loved our drywall guy! Anyone have local plumbers they have loved for Eric? We’d appreciate the reference too!
xo
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Eric says
That’s understandable! We used Robinson’s Plumbing Service when we had our leak. They were great and the price seemed reasonable. Our service guy even came back out when we had some clogged shower head issues (from them doing the repair work) and he gave us a brand new Delta shower head to replae ours!
Thanks again for the drywall guy info. We’ll be calling him soon!
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks Eric!
xo
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Patti says
Oh my gosh I was laughing through this whole post, you’re so funny! Every one I know that owns a home has had to deal with the dreaded backup issue so you’re definitely not alone! On a side note, I recently heard that those new flushable wipes are being blamed for clogging sewers and septic systems. Turns out they don’t disintegrate like tp and are causing major havoc with wastewater utilities.
Jessica says
OH MAN! I can relate! My husband and I have our first baby due in about four weeks (a boy!) and we decided to gut the upstairs of our house (two bedrooms and a bathroom) in preparation for our bundle of joy. This began last August and is still not complete! We took out a loan for the remodel and planned to get new windows, update the wiring, insulate, reconfigure where the closets are in each bedroom and completely remodel and update the bathroom. Well, we discovered during a particularly nasty rain storm that we needed a new roof. It was supposed to be an $8,000 job, which turned into a $14,000 job! A lot of the wood under the shingles had to be replaced due to rot and some of the rafters as well. OY VEY!
Then we had a plumber come to replace the hundred year old pipes in the bathroom. Well, he didn’t connect the toilet correctly which resulted in flooding our dining room below! We ended up tearing out the dining room ceiling (twice!) and having to replace the drain pipes that ran between the bathroom floor and the dining room ceiling. Needless to say, we have run out of money for this whole project and can only complete the bedrooms for now. The bathroom remodel will have to wait. Bottom line, we feel your pain! Good luck and congratulations on the Bun!
Cindy Matthews says
It can happen even in a rancher. Our house is almost 50 years old and the sewer lines drains to the rear. We had trouble with the guest toilet clogging ever since we moved in 17 years ago. Plunging and snaking didn’t fix it. Called the plumber who investigated and added an air lock. Still didn’t fix it. Call it back and they sent a guy with 30 years experience. Turns out when they built the house they assumed the sewer lines would drain to the street not to the rear of the lot. The angles were wrong and they installed a lot of 90 degree turns. Had to have the whole house replumbed to the tune of $2K. Even had to replace the toilets with the new energy efficient toilets. Ouch!! Now everything works and the city did give us a rebate on the toilets.
Amanda says
I spent a few months painting and installing new flooring before moving into my new home earlier this year. About one month after moving in, the water heater started leaking – right next to my brand new wood floors! I was super lucky to hear the drip (it was leaking from the back) one night while laying on the couch enjoying my quiet house. As you said – the joys of homeownership! :)
Lynn @ Our Useful Hands says
Yuckaroo is right! I hate when bathrooms turn on us. Right now we are dealing with a hole in our roof, during a few days of rain, and it’s kinda (nay, really solidly IS) pretty miserable these days around these parts. My solution for combating the homeowner blues? Tackle a project I can have control over. Yesterday we did a dump run and it felt oh so good. I’m glad it cost you under a grand to get your work done though. That’s awesome and it seems like you guys “suffer” from an overflow of good, honest, shows up and does the work when contractually obligated workman all in your neck of the woods. That in itself is real estate gold.
My best, Lynn
YoungHouseLove says
Great tip!
xo
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