Things I hate, One
Discovering that the plumbers who charged $275 to clear a blocked drain at my old Mum's place a week ago, achieved nothing other than breaking open the drain pipe under the house.
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1, 2. So now there's a week's worth of sewage in the low crawl space. Discovered due to the smell.
3. All right, I'll do it myself. First step, find the blockage. Dig, dig, dig. It's in this section. The stupid geometry is apparently the result of replacing some of the original all-clay-pipe system with PVC pipe, about 40 years ago. I had nothing to do with it.
4. Yep. Pottery pipes and their rubber ring seals, so beloved of tree roots. The entire horizontal section here is mulch-filled. Obviously the high pressure water jet thing the plumbers shoved up the drain from the downstream end, never came anywhere near this.
5. A bit of root dislodging via that open pipe allowed the backed-up mess to fountain out. The downstream pipe is still solidly blocked.
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1. The old pipes removed, to get access to the clay pipe run. Also so the new PVC pipe geometry can be more sensible.
2. Hire an electric drain root-cutter for a day. Effectively a rotating steel saw blade enema.
3. The rods are flexible, up to a point. Not enough to go round sharp 90° bends. And if a length is unconstrained when driven it will tend to loop up and kink. Hence using the old bits of clay pipe, propped up as an entry guide.
Both this pipe run, and a further length around the end of the building were completely blocked. Backed-up water would take all night to go down, which means there was only seepage through the gunk. Very fortunately the cutter and rods were able to go round the underground corner bend to the second pipe run.
After adding the sixth and last rod, the cutter reached the major tree root intrusion in the 2nd pipe section. Success! The drain now runs easily. Thus saving me from having to dig a second pit nearly as big as the first.
4. Cutting off the pottery pipe 'bell end', using a diamond cutting disk in the angle grinder. The new joiner works with a plain end on the pipe. Note the safety guard removed from the angle grinder. Sometimes there just isn't room for it. Extreme care observed when it's like this.
5. New piping. Completed late in the evening, and there's still a small fiddly bit for the vent pipe to do. But at least now the kitchen and main bathroom can be used again. However...
Things I hate, Two
Looking at something you just made, and before you even get to admire it, you see a much better way you should have done it.In this case, I should have angled the 'upright' pipe over to 45°, providing an easy lead-in path for next time an electric root-cutter needs to be used. The 90° bend at the bottom of this is too small a radius for it.
This oversight due to making a plan on paper before I hired the drain root cutter machine, and learning that those things don't like going around small radius 90° bends. Also due to me being in a rush. And being stupid.
Otoh, as my mum pointed out, she's 88 and in declining health. Maybe the next time this drain has tree roots, it will be someone else's problem.
Things I hate, Three
For many years, skipping the multiple expeditions into the vast Blackwattle Bay Drain system with friends, due to the slight possibility of encountering poo.Then one week after I do go on a BWB expo and there's no poo, unavoidably ending up dredging buckets of the stuff. If I don't win the shit-stirrer award this year, I'll want to know why.
Things I hate, Four
Crawling around under houses, removing stinky soil. I once had to deal with about six month's accumulation of fatty sludge, after a kitchen sink drain broke at an investment property of ours, and the tenants didn't bother to tell us about it until the stench became extreme. That was one of the things that convinced me to sell off the properties, and pay off all the mortgages (including ours.) I had hoped to never have to do that again. Guess what I'm going to be doing tomorrow.Things I hate, Five
Reaching the really satisfying stage of a small building construction project (a roof extension and space enclosure on a shed), where only a few more hours work will see completion of the roof, and suddenly... one has to spend several days dealing with an urgent and disgusting drain repair.The current farcical chain of project dependencies:
Vacuum system project.
Vacuum chamber needs some large diameter machined rings.
Buy a big old lathe to make the rings. (done)
Move the lathe from Caringbah to my place. (done)
Clear enough space to get it under cover. (done)
Lathe must be set up in Forge Shed, which isn't complete.
Need to move more stuff OUT of Forge Shed, so can complete interior. (Benches, shelving, etc)
Where to put the big things?
Build semi-enclosed awning/lean-to on side of forge shed. (In progress, going well)
Mum's sewer blocks up, requiring I drop everything else till it's fixed.
Things I hate, Six
All the tedious minor final details and tidying up after projects. Like adding these pics to this file.
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1. Joining the oddly angled ends for the existing roof vent pipe. Jointing PVC pipe fittings requires first wiping both join surfaces with a 'primer' solvent (red) that removes oily contamination. Then the blue solvent-glue is brushed on both surfaces, which are then immediately pressed together and held in place for a few seconds. Within 10 seconds, the joint is firmly stuck and not possible (or desirable) to move again.
The result is that when a series of angled joints are needed to bridge two non-adjustable ends, if even one of the joints is oriented a bit wrong when the glue sets, it's a disaster.
The way to do it, is to assemble without glue, and mark all the joint angles. All joints must be fully seated to the correct depth, but when you are pushing in a joint with wet glue, you can't tell how far in it's gone. So it's best to mark depth too.
That's what all the black lines are here. It was assembled, marked, disassembled, then glued one joint at a time.
2. Cement support for the bottom horizontal run. This is essential, since the weight of dirt above can displace and break the pipe if the bottom is not firmly supported. This is two 20Kg bags worth of premixed concrete. And now the cement should be left to set properly, before filling in the hole. So I can't fill the hole in today.
3. If you were wondering what the business end of the tree root cutter looks like.
4. What my workshop floor looks like now. This is the result of working on my car, the lathe, the building extension, and mum's drain recently, all without enough of a break to tidy up and put tools away.
5. The hole filled in, tidied up. That took another half a day. Next: some new plants in the bare garden bed.
Things I hate, Seven
Meeting someone I really like, but am most probably never going to see again. FML.