Plumbing Fun

Eleven days in and we are still unable to use our kitchen sink. Although our new house is feeling more and more like home as things slowly get unpacked and put in their places, it is still difficult because of our current plumbing situtation. 

We knew before we bought this house that there would eventually be a plumbing problem. The house we bought was built in 1965 which means the plumbing has old cast iron pipes. Apparently cast iron pipes are prone to rust and deterioration, causing major plumbing issues down the line. 

When we first looked at the house, the woman who was selling it, was very open and honest with us. She told us that her plumber had told her that she was going to need to eventually redo all the plumbing in the house. Even knowing that, we still decided to go for it. 

We figured that plumbing issues or not we still wanted this home. We had been looking for nearly two years for a home. We knew we wanted an older home in an established neighborhood without an HOA. We loved the custom homes versus the cookie cutter homes, so we figured if not this home, the next home that we find will most likely have the same plumbing issues since we have only been looking at older homes. 

So really the plumbing should not have come as a surprise. I guess we were hoping that it would happen down the line. When we were talking to a plumber who gave us an estimate on what it would cost to repipe this house prior to us buying it, he was honest and said, the plumbing could be fine for another 10 years or it could bust tomorrow. We were hoping for another 10 years and we certainly didn’t think it would back up the night we moved in, but it did. 

As it turns out another plumber the home warranty people sent on Tuesday, was unable to fix our problem. We thought maybe he could rotor rooter the drain and get the clogs out, but since we have cast iron he had to be very careful of the tools he used and how he went about trying to dislodge the clog in our kitchen sink drain. That being said, he was unable to clear it. 

The good news is that under the same service call and deductible the warranty company is sending another plumber out on Wednesday to use a special hydro-jet that is supposed to clear out all the clogs all throughout the house, but blasting a powerful stream of water through the pipes. Hopefully that will do the trick.

I thought doing dishes by hand for the last seven years was bad, since we haven’t had a dishwasher, but I would take that any day over doing dishes in a mop bucket and having to dump the dirty dishwater in the backyard.