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cimoreneThis morning there was not really any new water in the garage, just the standing bit around the drain from last night. We called the plumber who fixed our radiators so promptly and described the sitch to him. Since the water was no longer rising, it wasn't exactly an emergency anymore (+yet), and he advised us that the problem would likely be fixed by having the septic tank under the garage emptied. At least, we THINK it's a septic tank? Wax now says she's quite sure that the drains from the tenant's side of the house go to this tank and NOT to the city water, and that the rain water was originally directed there too but through a mess of pipes installed by idiots, and with no outlet to the sewers. Anyway, we don't have a plan of the pipes or anything so we're not 100% sure on that, but it would explain the septic smell I guess... tbh, as stinky as it was, it wasn't really like pure undiluted sewage, but perhaps the quantity of rainwater dilution explains that...
Anyway! The plumber thought pumping it dry would help so we came inside to google for an appropriate pump truck service to call, and I hopped in the shower while Wax called. The guy asked her to text some details so she did and didn't hear back, so we made a grocery store run and while we were there he called like "I'm here, where do I go?" He had just jumped in the car and come right over! He was done in well under an hour, I'd say. I found my journal entry about draining the tank in 2019, and apparently that took 4.5 hours and required them to blast some blockages away with water. The drains work now and everything should be fine if we simply continue to have the septic tank emptied yearly. The tenant has not had her drains stop working, but has been noticing them being smelly quite recently. Exasperatingly, she didn't tell us, just told her bff, who (incorrectly) advised her to flush more often (because the smell wasn't due to the water not going down, it was due to the septic tank under the house being too full).
That was less than half the battle though. We had to fill the van with sewage-sodden books, cardboard, and other ruined stuff and cart a load of it to the town dump, in the process of which we both cut our hands in spite of wearing gloves. After lunch we filled the car again with 'donate' stuff which we had to drive to Turku, about an hour round trip, but we discovered on the way that the van was jerking all over the place, pretty constantly, when you accelerate, and it got worse, not better. We googled probable causes and apparently none of them meant it was about to explode or anything, but still not really good news. We DID make it to Turku and back, but I think we were both white-knuckling it a bit, and we left the van at the car fixing garage (which was closed for the day) and walked nearly half an hour home. At least the weather was nice.
There was sewage goop coming out of the floor in the sauna as well, and we also never disinfected the sauna after the original flood 2 years ago when the water was knee high (saunas are of necessity furnished in untreated wood). So we also contacted a local fixit service about having them clean it and the garage out for us, but unfortunately our tenant still has probably two to three trucks' worth of STUFF stacked along the wall of the garage, and any of it that was touching the floor and not waterproof is now potentially ruined, but she hasn't even had time to start going through it because she's trying to finish an article she's writing for a deadline. The garage floor can't be disinfected until her stuff is taken care of and moved out of the way.
Ultimately the biggest hero of this story is the fact that I had written about having the tank drained by pump truck in my journal two years ago, and the fact that last night I decided to check my journal to read what happened the last time the garage flooded (because that we DID remember, just not the pump truck). There weren't any details there, but it was the clue we needed for our next possible step and has likely saved us from otherwise having to have the whole system either inspected by a plumber (and apparently they're all busy in the area again so we'd've had to call someone from further away at higher rates) or even photographed again by camera snake for a couple of grand. That inspired me to comb through every mention of renovation in my journals from the interim and also to pick out the dates from our snapshots of the work we did ourselves, like the floor installations, painting and wallpaper and building the wardrobe, which were all taken on the day of. With that I was able to compile a complete timeline of the renovation (which isn't finished since we're still missing doorframes and new flooring and have three major walls to resurface). I also carefully wrote down what the professionals said and did, who they were, and what we did in my journal again.
Anyway! The plumber thought pumping it dry would help so we came inside to google for an appropriate pump truck service to call, and I hopped in the shower while Wax called. The guy asked her to text some details so she did and didn't hear back, so we made a grocery store run and while we were there he called like "I'm here, where do I go?" He had just jumped in the car and come right over! He was done in well under an hour, I'd say. I found my journal entry about draining the tank in 2019, and apparently that took 4.5 hours and required them to blast some blockages away with water. The drains work now and everything should be fine if we simply continue to have the septic tank emptied yearly. The tenant has not had her drains stop working, but has been noticing them being smelly quite recently. Exasperatingly, she didn't tell us, just told her bff, who (incorrectly) advised her to flush more often (because the smell wasn't due to the water not going down, it was due to the septic tank under the house being too full).
That was less than half the battle though. We had to fill the van with sewage-sodden books, cardboard, and other ruined stuff and cart a load of it to the town dump, in the process of which we both cut our hands in spite of wearing gloves. After lunch we filled the car again with 'donate' stuff which we had to drive to Turku, about an hour round trip, but we discovered on the way that the van was jerking all over the place, pretty constantly, when you accelerate, and it got worse, not better. We googled probable causes and apparently none of them meant it was about to explode or anything, but still not really good news. We DID make it to Turku and back, but I think we were both white-knuckling it a bit, and we left the van at the car fixing garage (which was closed for the day) and walked nearly half an hour home. At least the weather was nice.
There was sewage goop coming out of the floor in the sauna as well, and we also never disinfected the sauna after the original flood 2 years ago when the water was knee high (saunas are of necessity furnished in untreated wood). So we also contacted a local fixit service about having them clean it and the garage out for us, but unfortunately our tenant still has probably two to three trucks' worth of STUFF stacked along the wall of the garage, and any of it that was touching the floor and not waterproof is now potentially ruined, but she hasn't even had time to start going through it because she's trying to finish an article she's writing for a deadline. The garage floor can't be disinfected until her stuff is taken care of and moved out of the way.
Ultimately the biggest hero of this story is the fact that I had written about having the tank drained by pump truck in my journal two years ago, and the fact that last night I decided to check my journal to read what happened the last time the garage flooded (because that we DID remember, just not the pump truck). There weren't any details there, but it was the clue we needed for our next possible step and has likely saved us from otherwise having to have the whole system either inspected by a plumber (and apparently they're all busy in the area again so we'd've had to call someone from further away at higher rates) or even photographed again by camera snake for a couple of grand. That inspired me to comb through every mention of renovation in my journals from the interim and also to pick out the dates from our snapshots of the work we did ourselves, like the floor installations, painting and wallpaper and building the wardrobe, which were all taken on the day of. With that I was able to compile a complete timeline of the renovation (which isn't finished since we're still missing doorframes and new flooring and have three major walls to resurface). I also carefully wrote down what the professionals said and did, who they were, and what we did in my journal again.
(no subject)
Date: 1 Nov 2021 06:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2 Nov 2021 06:09 am (UTC)Searching my journal has been very helpful many times for figuring out when we got a new something or when something broke down. Without that record I would never remember!
(no subject)
Date: 2 Nov 2021 11:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 3 Nov 2021 05:48 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 3 Nov 2021 02:02 am (UTC)