Fun with snakes

This week the drain started flowing slower and slower again. So I got out my handy dandy snake and got to work. I know that snaking out your own drains is way cheaper than hiring Mr. Plumber Buttcrack out to do the job. My sewer snake cost about $30 - which is a fraction of the cost of just getting a plumber out to your house.

After locating the cleaning access (and making sure no one started the dishwasher on me) I go ready to get to business.










The snake (or auger) that I use for cleaning my septic lines is a bit bigger than what you might use for cleaning the bathroom sink. It has a large, pointy head for breaking through those hard to clear rubber duckies.










Cleaning the clog is as easy as unrolling the snake into the pipe and using a little elbow grease to bash through any clots you might hit. A firm in and out motion usually does the job for me. I used my elbow grease to break up some pretty hefty grease clots in the line.


As you can see, the line gets pretty grunky during the cleaning. My clog is mostly grease, but I'm not sure I want to know what else is on there.....

Once you've broken through the clog, the drains should flow smoothly again. If your snake is made out of metal ,like mine, it's very important to clean and oil it before you put it away, so it doesn't rust. I simply wipe the snake clean with a paper towel and then wipe it with an oil covered paper towel. I use 3-in-1 oil, cause that's what I had laying around. WD-40 or just about any other oil would work just as well.

It's all about poop, teeth and shoes

One of my daughters school teachers said that childhood can be summed up in two words: teeth and shoes. I think that is because she is a teacher. If you are a parent it is 3 words. Poop, teeth and shoes. So this goes under the poop category:

Our septic tank exploded. We figured being built in 1957 was not agreeing with it. We did not want to have to replace it, because it would be spendy, so my intrepid husband donned his old clothes and dug up the entire back yard with a shovel. We have this conversation a lot, where I say, let's call someone to do this for us...and he says he is just as capable as some idiot from the phone book...and I say I wasn't saying you're not capable ... and anyway you can probably see where this is going. So he starts snaking pipes and shoveling crap, and I decide I'm not going to watch, because he is going to get mad eventually, and I don't want to be there when he does.
He comes in later, covered in it, and says, you're never going to guess what was wrong with the septic tank. I look at him and shoot him a "what?" look...
He says to me there was a banana peel, a pair of rolled up socks, and a RUBBER DUCK stuck down there.
At this point all the kids ran for their lives.
You heard it here first folks, poop, teeth and shoes.

Projects to date

Because some of the posts I'll be putting up are in 'flashback mode' (after the fact), I'll try and recap what we have bitten off so far:

• Removed 20 year old blue shag carpet - done before we even moved in. Lived with 50 year old wood flooring for four years because it was 10X less hideous than that carpet! [done]
  
  
• Installed Pergo flooring in the kitchen, living room and upstairs bathroom. Yet to do: hallway and upstairs bedrooms. Yes - we installed Pergo over hardwood floors. No - we aren't crazy. We have 3 boys ages 3-10 and a dog. The Pergo will go and we will refinish the floors 10-15 years from now when the demolition derby moves out. Best Pergo installation tip: cage the dog when laying it, as dog urine will 'wick' under a 3-5 foot section ( a serious blood pressure agitator). [project not completed]
  
  
• Painted every room in the house EXCEPT the master bedroom. Well - I did paint one wall while my wife was at the hospital recuperating from the delivery of our 10 lb wonder baby, but halted that project when they got home and the paint fumes were making everyone sick! [project not completed]
  
  
• Knocked out the wall between a bedroom and the kitchen. Installed custom built-in shelving. Replaced all of the kitchen cabinets and fixtures. Added a boatload of electrical outlets (rerouting the 220 line for the stove) and capped the existing gas line. No - I didn't blow up the house, and the roof has not collapsed - I was 99% sure the wall was not load bearing! Still need to finish installing cabinetry and install bead board along one wall. [project not completed]
  
  
• Completed finishing the basement as a living space. Two months later, kids knocked basement toilet off of it's base and filled the basement with 1/2 inch of water. Ripped out all of the carpet, started painting walls (wife hated the existing colors anyways). Let kids live because I fear the law and the $900 TV armoire form Pier One somehow managed to escape unscathed. I guess I'm also too lazy to dig that many graves in our clay soil. [project completed, ruined and now way unfinished]
  
  
• Transformed one basement bedroom to 'Hogwarts' themed room with faux stone walls and flaming torches. [project completed]
  
  
• Refinished basement playroom into bedroom. Repainted walls, installed beadboard with lots of hooks for jewelry, etc. Painted everything and made it really nice. I should have gotten a security deposit from my daughter before she moved in. [project completed, as I'm not repainting everything in there every week!]
  
  
• Built a sweet tree house in the back yard using salvaged wood and cheap underage labor. [project completed, at least until we talk my wife into letting us put in a second floor]
  
  
• Replaced all upstairs bathroom fixtures. Started custom shelving. Learned how to install Pergo under a toilet. Didn't caulk the edges well enough so the floor buckled when the toilet and tub got the floor all wet, so I got to do the floor twice to ensure I knew what I was doing.
  
  
• Converted large entry closet into small office, with custom built in shelving and desk. [done]
  
  
• Started wall along driveway using landscaping blocks. [project unfinished]
  

Minor projects:

• Turned off the pilot light (to save gas). Attempted cleaning/repair of corroded pilot light gas line, breaking pilot light assembly. Fixed pilot light assembly. [completed]
  
  
• Mounted a 21' LCD TV over the mantle in the living room [not completed - assembly not approved until unsightly cords are out of sight]
  
  
• Added 50 Amp 220 V circuit for an electric dryer, which died six months later and was replaced with a gas one. [completed]
  
  
• Switched out most of the exterior lighting [one left to go]
  
  
• Constructed a pergola next to the house. [didn't turn out the way we envisioned, will need to be re-done]
  
  
• Replaced a valve in every sink in the place [shower hot water just started leaking, right after I spent all day stacking a lot of heavy construction supplies in front of the access panel leading to it's shutoff]
  
  
• Installed a wooden swingset [completed - amazingly the kids haven't been able to brek it in three years]
  

Foundation

Here is the foundation of my latest folly - a 16 X 16' bedroom addition:

I'll be the general contractor for it - subbing out the foundation and the framing/roofing but doing the rest myself. This was a nice compromise with my dear wife, so the shell will look done from the outside even if it takes me forever to finish up the inside. We broke ground September of 2005, so you can tell how well I'm doing!

It was quite an undertaking to get the thing to this point. No end of trucks and dust and piles of dirt and gravel. We decided to do the addition as a step down, meaning we were going to put a slab of concrete on the ground and not try to build it up to the same level as the floor next to it - yes we know the floor will be horribly cold. We did this to save money on construction, and it did save us a bundle. In this picture you can see how the addition is connected to the foundation of the house- it will actually cover one of the basement windows up.

All in all, the extra 256 sq ft. will be tremendously useful - we have had a change of heart since the plans were drawn and are making this additional square footage to our existing bedroom (which will function like a den/craft room/exercise room) instead of an additional bedroom. A bit selfish, because we'll kick our daughter downstairs into a basement bedroom as we knock out the wall between the kitchen and her bedroom to make a bigger kitchen (she'll live - both my wife and myself had stints in basement bedrooms and neither turned out to be psychopaths, and we'll remodel it quite cute for her!). This will also make the formal bedroom count of the house down by one to two upstairs bedrooms and two downstairs rooms. The comments have been made that this will make the house much harder to sell. My answer to that is 'have you seen the house?'. Seriously, being on a busier road, and not having A/C this house has a lot more against it than the number of bedrooms. My belief is that there are plenty of people with only one kid that want a house with no A/c on a busy road with a huge master bedroom (without walk in closets and a private bath - more on that later) and a gourmet kitchen. OK - honestly it's our house, we have no plans on moving or selling it for the next 10 years, and it makes a heck of a lot more sense to make it meet our needs than to live in a house that doesn't meet our needs for the possible whims of some future buyer. I mean, we bought this house when it had 20 year old blue shag carpet - hopefully someone out there will be as desperate/stupid as we were when we bought it!

Our American Nightmare

This is Our American Nightmare because it is certainly not the American dream we had in mind. We are renovating our house which was originally built in 1957. Hilarity ensues. Check back for the pratfalls.