Sadly, “The Septic Saga” is not the name of a book I just finished. Instead, it describes the current problems I am having with my house. If you’re interested in hearing about the saga, read on. If not, more book reviews are coming, I promise, just maybe not this week. It’s been a bit crazy.
It started on Christmas Eve. I had thrown in a load of laundry and ran downstairs to dry the laundry before we started making cut-out cookies. Unfortunately, I didn’t notice that the front-loading washing machine hadn’t emptied until *after* I opened the door. Smelly water started pouring from the washing machine, all over me. Once I got over the stunning fact that there was way more water in the washing machine than there should be, I hurriedly shut the door and started cleaning up the floor. We were able to spin most of the water out of the washer, but something was obviously wrong.
My husband figured there was just a clog in the line somewhere so he snaked the line leading out of the house. That led to water pouring out of the line leading from the house. My poor son was stuck behind the washing machine, holding a bucket to catch the gallons of water that was coming from the pipe.
OK, fine, the kitchen was off line. We figured we were still OK because when we had to replace the septic line leading from the house to the septic tank earlier this spring (the guys installing a charging station for our new electric car cracked the pipe digging a trench for the electric line), they had said that the kitchen and washing machine didn’t empty into the septic tank. However, when I rinsed out the clothes that were in the washer, a gush of water came out of the pipe leading out of the house from the kitchen line. It seems the lines were connected, and we couldn’t use any drains. It was Christmas Eve and my mother-in-law had just come to spend the night with her grandkids. Obviously, we couldn’t stay if we couldn’t use the drains. So, we packed up Christmas to move to my mother-in-law’s two-bedroom apartment 30 minutes away.
We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at my mother-in-law’s house. (For those of you keeping score, there were five adults (or nearly so) and three dogs in this apartment.) The day after Christmas, we decided to go home and check on the status of the house. No more water had drained into the washing machine and the basement wasn’t flooded. We still had the camp toilet and decided to stay in the house during the day and head to my mother-in-law’s for dinner and overnight until we could get someone to take a look at it.
We got the septic guy to come in and look at the system. The septic tank wasn’t backing up, but there was a problem with the kitchen line. We got someone to come in and pump the septic tank, and it seemed to be working fine. We got a contractor to come in to install a pump to hook the kitchen line into the septic tank. When it came time to tap into the kitchen line, he discovered the washing machine was full of water again and water poured from same pipe. Since all he was going to do was cap that pipe, and the cap wouldn’t hold under too much pressure, we told him to stop what he was doing. It seemed to be a problem with the leach bed.
So, once again, we have no drains at the house. This time, we’re spending a few nights at a local friend’s downstairs apartment they rent out. It’s close to the house so easy enough to head home during the day. Even so, we’re out of sorts. I just want to be able to take a shower or flush the toilet without worry where the water is going to end up. Thursday, the excavator is coming to find our leach bed (we have no idea where it is) and do some analysis. Let’s hope it’s not too expensive of a fix.
So, that’s the reason why there might not be many blog posts this week! And, college classes start up next week for a class I’ve never taught and I only have two weeks of lecture written for the class. Needless to say, I’m a bit stressed.