What I'm Thankful For

I am thankful for my job.  If it weren't for my job, we couldn't have handled the Thanksgiving Plumbing Fiasco of 2012.

We have had some plumbing issues at the house for a while now.  The house periodically plugs up and requires serious intervention.  We had our first serious issue in February of this year.  There were a few little clogs here and there.  Then in May, while my dad was here, we had another serious run in.  It was so bad that we had to have a plumber come out and clear the line.  He used a camera and didn't see anything too outrageous.  Just the typical grease build-up that needed to be cleaned.  I figured that since it took at least 4 years for this build up to get to the point that it was causing problems for us, that we would have another 4 years for it to get to that point again.  

So you can imagine my surprise when things started acting up a few weeks ago.  The kitchen sink never completely backed up.  It would just be slow to drain for a day and then it would go away.  This past Thursday morning, Thanksgiving morning, it got worse.  It completely stopped up.  Travis borrowed the neighbors snake and spent hours unclogging it.  We never saw what caused the problem, but at least we would be able to cook Thanksgiving dinner and do the dishes without an issue.  

Then it came back 10-fold Saturday.  The dishes piled up next to the sink all afternoon/evening.  Travis went under the sink to take the pea trap apart and noticed the disposal was leaking.  We wondered if it was not working properly so big chunks of food were making it out and plugging up the line.  Sunday he went to Home Depot (HD) and picked up a new disposal.  Since he was going to be taking the plumbing apart, he figured he'd replace our leaky faucet as well.  I was excited for him to do some work that I could see, so I was all for it.  When he got down there to replace the disposal, one of the pipes fell off when he touched it.  It shouldn't have fallen off.  It should have held on for dear life because it was rusted on.  Well, it was rusted off.  Totally corroded.  

Travis: "Guess I'll replace the remainder of the pipe as well."

Me: "UGH.  Ok.  It HAS to be done."

Travis: "Since I'll have the sink out to put all this together, do you just want me to pick up a new counter top while I'm at HD?"

Blink, blink.

Travis: "And we might as well get a new back splash while we're at it."

Me: "Ummmmm... Yaaaaa.  I don't think that's going to work for me."

Travis: "Just joking!"

UGH.

Travis headed back to HD for more parts and he had to stop at work to pick up some more of his tools.  Total, he spent 12 hours working on that sink.  

In the end, Travis found eight whole pecans caught in a bend in the pipe directly under the sink.

Squirrels have been stuffing their winter store of pecans in the plumbing vent on our roof.  Not sure how they planned on getting them out.  I guess they didn't think that far ahead.

Next step: Put a cover on the roof vent.