sewer woes
Jun. 28th, 2019 02:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
boxofdelights(This was a comment, but I decided to share it with all of you.)
Yay old houses! And also sewers.
I thought the issue with my old sewer line was that it does not slope as steeply down to the city sewer as modern code requires. Also, because our soil has a lot of bentonite clay, which expands when it gets wet, my sewer line has developed some kinks. These problems mean that stuff does not get rinsed down the line as briskly as it ought to be. A "will need fixing someday" problem.
However! I just remodeled the kitchen and bathrooms and discovered a new (very old) problem by taking a bath, which I hadn't been able to do here before, and noticing water leaking through the basement wall.
Many decades ago this house added a bathroom, which required a new foundation wall a foot or two outside the old foundation wall. The old sewer clean-out, which is outside the old foundation wall but inside the new foundation wall, did not get removed or sealed off. So when you dump a large quantity of water, like a bathtub full, down the drain, and there is stuff in the sewer line, it backs up through the top of the old clean-out valve and seeps into the basement.
Fixing the problem would start with cutting a hole in the old foundation wall. I opted for the plumber's other suggestion: avoiding the problem by getting my sewer line snaked every year. I just hope this works.
Yay old houses! And also sewers.
I thought the issue with my old sewer line was that it does not slope as steeply down to the city sewer as modern code requires. Also, because our soil has a lot of bentonite clay, which expands when it gets wet, my sewer line has developed some kinks. These problems mean that stuff does not get rinsed down the line as briskly as it ought to be. A "will need fixing someday" problem.
However! I just remodeled the kitchen and bathrooms and discovered a new (very old) problem by taking a bath, which I hadn't been able to do here before, and noticing water leaking through the basement wall.
Many decades ago this house added a bathroom, which required a new foundation wall a foot or two outside the old foundation wall. The old sewer clean-out, which is outside the old foundation wall but inside the new foundation wall, did not get removed or sealed off. So when you dump a large quantity of water, like a bathtub full, down the drain, and there is stuff in the sewer line, it backs up through the top of the old clean-out valve and seeps into the basement.
Fixing the problem would start with cutting a hole in the old foundation wall. I opted for the plumber's other suggestion: avoiding the problem by getting my sewer line snaked every year. I just hope this works.
They put the "moan" in "home ownership"
Date: 2019-06-29 08:34 pm (UTC)I'm glad it's snakeable.
no subject
Date: 2019-06-30 04:19 am (UTC)At least it's a snakeable problem, I suppose.