I'm going to put the "teal deer" up front, so you don't have to read the whole thing if you don't want to.

tl;dr: The good news is the blockage is gone. The bad news is that I will probably need the line to the sewer replaced this spring or summer.

Okay. So. The longer version: I got home, saw the two cleanouts installed. Called the plumbing company to see if that meant they were really done or not. "Oh, they need to come back now that you're home." Turns out they needed me there for the "cabling*" so I could turn on and turn off taps and do things like flush large quantities of toilet paper for them.

(*The knitter in me is thinking: this is not like any kind of cabling I am used to.)

They first cabled with a grabby thing (kind of like on those claw machines) on the end. They cabled for a while, then the two plumbers (there were a total of four there) who were closest to the cleanout made a noise indicating approbation, looked at each other and nodded. "You hear that?" they called to me. I was standing up on my little side porch so, no, I hadn't. "The clog just broke up," he explained.

They cabled a while further, and then retracted the cable. It came up empty. "That's strange," mused one of the guys.

So they got out their camera thing. (I did get to see the "colonoscopy" of my drainage pipes after all). That's when the bad news came.

The pipes have roots in them. Quite a lot of roots at one point, where the clog had formed.

Now, I always wondered how roots GOT in pipes. I had visualized drain pipes as a single continuous length of cast iron or whatever.

"See that?" the plumber asked me. "These are the old clay pipes and every junction between sections has got roots." He kept snaking the camera on down, and by golly, yes, every junction had a little collar of roots growing into it.

So: old clay pipes (I presume like the terracotta things that are used for farm-field drainage? Which actually, some prairie restorationists, when they get a plot of drained land, will go through and break with a heavy metal probe so they can restore the original hydrology to the site...). The gaps let stuff in.

This also explains why once in a while I would find an earwig blundering around in my bathtub. They probably got in through the junction in the pipes, wandered around until they saw light, and then came up the lowest, easiest drain in the house. The house has largely been re-plumbed indoors (at least, the tub has), but they never did anything to the old drain lines.

The plumber said they could replace the clay pipes with a single length of PVC, which would eliminate the roots-growing-in problem.

Dismayed, I remarked, "Those roots are a big problem. They'll probably start another clog right away. I guess I better arrange for the new drain line. I know you won't be able to do that right now, with as wet as it's been."

"Well," the plumber said. And then, "Darrell, get that cutting blade and put it on the cable."

They ran the cable through again. Ran it really far. It did hit pretty big resistance in a couple points. They cabled it out - as they said - pretty much to the join-up with the sewer. When they pulled it out, there were just a few roots hooked on to it.

"All that work," I said, "And almost no roots."
"Oh," the plumber responded, "It cut the roots. It just pushed them down into the city sewer is all."

They didn't offer to re-camera - and at that point it was nearly 4 pm and I had errands yet to run so I didn't press the issue. They did bring out another of their "toys" (I think they enjoy showing homeowners the technological stuff they have). It was kind of like ground-penetrating radar combined with a metal detector - they used it to outline the path of the old clay pipe, and find the "tap" where it joins to the city line.

The bad news is, if I want to make things the best they can be, is that the city will need to replace the "tap" and the line up to my property (which, they warned me, the city charges a lot for - more, it seemed to me, than they seemed to think they should) and then they could come in and put in the new line.

I may wind up losing my forsythia and Japanese quince; they are right in the way. The plumbers did offer to try digging them with a root ball so I could transplant. And I figure, if the bushes die, I can get new ones. I think forsythia is pretty cheap. (And maybe I can wait until after they flower for this year to have them taken out. I don't know.)

Anyway. I need to call M and O (which is the sewer department) in my city and start making those plans (I figure: I have the money now, it's better to do something like that sooner rather than later). My avoidant side is saying "Oh, think about that later on, you've just gone through the stress of trying to get the line cleared" but the side of me that foresees problems too well says, "No. Get it done NOW before more roots grow in and you have another clog."

And, I don't know. I think I'd prefer just getting the new line put in to having to get the thing rooted out periodically and maybe suffering the same (or worse) problem in the future. (Because now that I think of it, I was incredibly lucky. I could have had sewage backing up into my sinks and stuff and be facing all kinds of horrible cleaning and sanitizing jobs. As it was, I did once or twice run some bleach through the tub because the water that backed up looked iffy)

I don't like spending the money - and it will be a lot, like, upwards of $2000 including the city stuff, but I remind myself that this is exactly why I live "below my means" - so that when something like this happens, I can go to my savings account, take out what I need to pay for the fix, and then gradually build the account back up over time.

I did also find out why it was so hard to get them out. The city hospital had a plumbing emergency last week...apparently the old cast iron drain pipes had corroded. The plumbers said they were working 32 hours straight on the problem. Because, unlike with a homeowner, where they could go to a motel overnight, or stay with friends, if a job couldn't be finished, you can't close down an entire hospital.

So anyway.

I figured they had fixed the problem- they had me fill the washing machine drum and make it empty, and flush the toilet multiple times, and open all the taps. But I am an empiricist, so I decided to test the drainage later that night.

I thought of doing laundry, but meh, I was tired.

So, I decided to do something I had not been able to do since the problem first cropped up in November: I drew a hot bath. And took the bath, and read in the bath, and tried to put the, "eventually you are going to have to see if this will drain" out of my mind.

And then, as the water cooled, I got out, opened the plug, and watched.

There were a few tense moments: at first, a full tub looks like nothing is happening as it drains. I actually set my hand at the water level just to assure myself that the water was receding.

But recede it did, and eventually the little vortex formed around the drain, and all the water drained out.

I estimated (measuring my tub later, it is just shy of four feet by two feet, and the bath was not quite a foot deep - so let's say just shy of 7 cubic feet. And there are about 7.5 gallons in a cubic foot (I had to look that up, it's a lot more than I would expect) that there was just over 50 gallons (wow. Baths DO take a lot of water) in there.

And it all drained. And it didn't take an unexpectedly long time.

And I decided to gamble, so I flushed the toilet. (Heh. Like pulling the lever on a slot machine). The water went down. The water refilled the bowl. Nothing happened that should not have happened.

So, it's fixed. For now. I'm going to do laundry tonight without too much fear.

In honor of this (And as maybe a reward for those who read this far), a little cartoon:



"Water go down the hoooooooooooooole!"

(And of course, you all know: don't flush anything that's not meant to be flushed. Well, unless you have a really attractive plumber, as was the premise of an ad I saw once...but even then, I'd rather have functional plumbing than watch a cute plumber...)