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Bought a house in 2015, and while my yard isn't as beautiful as my retired neighbors next door (left), I work for a living and don't have a ton of disposable daylight to spend in the yard.  Not beautiful, but clean. Pardon the car hoard. After some torrential rains over Thanksgiving, the occasional backup in my basement's floor drains turned into a full-on swamp. Had the main drain line rodded, which produced a ton of roots, and then cammed, which uncovered a complete break out by the sidewalk.  "It seeps some during rain storms, but adding downspout extenders helped" - The Sellers  My sewer line is now a leach field. Time to dig up the yard! Job #1 was repairing the break in the line, located under the sidewalk. (fortunately not out in the street) Job #2 was installing a cleanout access, since my house didn't have one. The first guy had to remove a toilet in the basement & run the rod & cam through the drain. Job #3 was replacing the original run of broken up clay pipe with PVC.  Job #3 was optional, but may as well dig 20 more feet of trench and do it right while the equipment is there. Keeps the tree roots and groundwater out of the drain as well.  Bit of interesting history - bottle came from the Elgin Eagle Brewing Company, Elgin IL, which went out of business in 1920. Because of Prohibition. My house was built sometime in 1920, so the original builders may have been doing a little post-prohibition drankin' on the job. More on these boneheads later... New line is laid, trench is covered up, sewer runs fine and the drains no longer hint of backing up. There are plenty of other plumbing issues such as the galvanized supply lines full of gunk, no proper vents for the upstairs sink or any of the drains in the basement, improper connections and rusted stuck shutoff to the hose spigot, but those will be tackled later. Winter comes and goes, and the dirt mound outside is settling.  Sidewalk square will be poured when I get around to it...  I have the dirt mound scraped away & the old flower beds removed from the front. I planted some grass and it started growing pretty quick, and things looked like they'd get back to presentable pretty soon. Knock-knock. It's the neighbors. "We'll be doing some work on our sewer this weekend, Sorry if there's a lot of noise!" Said it was fine, as I'm out of town this weekend. Good luck!  Ring-ring. It's the neighbors. "Our sewer line heads right under your driveway. We're gonna have to dig through it." Said it was fine, as long as they promised to put it back to a usable state. The original drive was crappy cracked up weathered concrete, blacktop will be an improvement.  Ring-ring. It's the neighbors. "Our sewer line actually goes right to yours, where the plumbers did their work last year. They disconnected us when they ran your new line. They're going to need to come out and re-connect us." Told them that's a matter they'd have to take up with those plumbers - and the plumbers actually did come out and they did reconnect them. I guess they did it for free, too, but not like I was going to get involved. First off, who in their right mind connects two sewer systems together like this?? I guess it passed whatever building code there was in 1920, or the idiot contractor building these houses greased some palms to get away with it. Certainly had to be easier than digging two trenches to the city's main line. Second, what kind of legal ramifications will this have? Should I come back and charge my neighbor for half of what I paid to re-pipe and reconnect my main line earlier last winter, back before I knew his line was connected to mine? I feel like I'm already being pretty accommodating by letting him cut through my property to get to his sewer line, potentially saving him tens of thousands in trenching a new line through the street to the city's main.  My yard looks like this now, and I've got all summer to wait for the mound to settle. Can't wait for the weeds to populate the mound and look terrible. My yard didn't look like much to begin with though, so I'm not too pissed. Maybe I should install a shutoff valve on his side of the line before the trench gets backfilled, for insurance that he puts my yard & driveway back together. Or just for fun when I get cranky. WHO RUN BARTERTOWN?
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May 16, 2016 23:30
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| # ¿ May 8, 2024 20:36 |
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It was the path of least resistance to just let them update the run, they took my authorization to dig as an authorization to dig & were most of the way through when they saw it would keep going. Plus it's just grass, and code already prevents me building anything permanent between my foundation and the street. I've done exactly zero landscaping in the front yard, and once the trench gets backfilled and driveway is connected I'll be whole. And yeah, if I had to cut through the street I'd pay the whole way. Kind of like I pay to maintain the sidewalk and the land past it, but it's still the city's property. Just to cut the sidewalk was $150 permit & $100 deposit to make sure I pave it again.
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May 17, 2016 01:58
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