Hi everyone! We are continuing to work away on the kitchen and making solid progress but completely unrelated to its work, we ran into another problem which called our attention away.

Like I had said earlier, we show up for work and the house tells us what our duties are for the day. This particular day, it got our attention in a most insisting and fragrant way. LOL.

As you recall, we now had two bathrooms functioning…well sort of. It seemed everything on the surface was functioning but everything BELOW the surface was not. It all started as a backed up toilet that was quickly determined to be in the line, not the toilet. Poor Paul, as he went into the cellar to see if he could tell if the stoppage went all the way down to the sewer plug, he quickly found…it did! Some of you might have noticed this plug in our boiler and cleaned out cellar shots. It’s a 4 inch diameter pipe coming along side the left cellar wall. Helpful Tip: Proceed with caution before opening one of these. Trust me. LOL

When he opened it to check….a JET of let’s just say backed up material SPRAYED out into the cellar, spraying a distance of about 5 or 6 feet straight out. Don’t even ask, yes, his clothes are now in the trash. But he confirmed the blockage did go that far and beyond. Looking at what lies beyond that, it was the main sewer lines coming from the house but before connecting to the street.

From the old photos we knew that there had been a large tree here and educated guess, the roots which still lay below the surface over time had grown into and broken the pipes. The water leaving the house all this time had been stopped at this point, hence the big build up pressure spray that happened in the cellar.

Needless to say, all work on the kitchen stopped and we called a person with a backhoe to come and excavate out that dirt above those sewer pipes so we could see. In normal soil, Paul would have merely dug (albeit deep and long hours, but it could have been done) but with as many roots were in this soil from over growth through the years as well as the massive tree roots, it was time to call the excavator and just get it done. Unfortunately mother nature decided she wasn’t done with winter yet during this time but it had to be done.

So in temps hovering in the 20’s, the back hoe came, exposed the numerous pipes at the point they connected to the sewer and for the next 2 days, Paul worked outside, ALL DAY breaking out the old cracked pipes and replacing each one. I being the ever wimpy one when it comes to extreme cold and wind, gave moral support through the window. 🙁

A few photos to show the fun. But we were very grateful that we discovered this now and were able to correct it before we were living there! It’s now all new and working well. AND that special fragrance is now completely gone from the cellar. LOL. It’s all a step and a day at a time with the ole’ girl.