Anyway - when it would rain, we noticed that our drains werern't.. well.. draining. The only thing really saving our basement from a rather nasty flooding was the rather large scrub sink that happens to be in our basement.
So - We called our Roto Rooter to save the day. The sent their spinning blades of waste removal down the sewer line, and unclogged the drain. Hoorah.
Right up until the next time it rained, and the clay and root pressed their way into the broken 30 year old 4" cement pipe. (yeah.. cement)
The Roto Rooter guy says he does larger projects like this on the side, and gives us a quote. Oooo! Nice quote - OK - get started. (Mistake one.)
_VERY_ long story short, he scammed us and did more damage than repair in the end, managing to burst our water main, and three of the sprinkler feed lines, with the water main repair job failing _twice_ after he left. The guy was an idiot. We were going to take him to court, but.. well - I called Roto Rooter trying to page this guy on a Saturday when the water main had burst. His friend was sending out the pages, and got me in touch with the idjit... Well.. hehe.. the owner of Roto Rooter apparently knows his employees all too well, and tape records all incoming calls, and heard my entire story. So - the idjit lost his job. Sorry he lost his job, but only marginally.
Next came the professional. Had the gas lines marked out, rented a backhoe, and proceeded to dig a 45' foot, 4-8' deep trench, and lay a new sewer drain pipe, and to find that the first guy had also managed to punch a hole into the bottom of the first washout's PVC. *sigh*
Neither was cheap. Turns out there's actually a paragraph in the legal work for the house that states that the sewer line isn't covered. Surprise!
All in All - a very educational (read "$$$") experience.
Here are some pictures of the pain:
Argggggh.. There be treasure!
(PS - The sewer line is 15' to the right...)
Notice the broken water main, and sprinkler lines
(There are two water mains - one to the house, one to the sprinkler system to avoid paying tax collection trash premiums on that line - nice trick, eh?)
Hmm.. Where that sewer line?
(They're still a good 10' off.)
At this point I lost my cool, taped a flashlight
onto the end of a pole, stuck it down into the
washout, then used a laser pointer, level and tape
measure to the bottom of the other washout, and
proceeded to mark the path of the sewer line.
In five minutes I was able to tell them the location
of the leak, in what they were unable to do in the
course of over a week at this point... *sigh*