Quarantine Journals - Plumbing catchup

So, on Monday, we were still having plumbing issues by naptime. I could tell that the toilets were still making a weird noise, and so I tested out running the bathtub and flushing a toilet, and sure enough ended up with a bathroom full of water. I called the plumbing company and ask them if they could send out the camera truck on Monday instead of Tuesday, but the guy said that they were too backed up. So, instead he sent out a more experienced drain specialist. The guy ran the snake through the line pretty quickly, and successfully, and he said he got a glass of water so he assumed that he got the blockage. We ran everything in the house, and it seemed like it was working fine, but I was still getting weird bubbles on one toilet when you flush the other one.

By the next morning, I felt like they were making weird noises again, and we were anxiously awaiting the camera dude to show up so he could run the camera through the line and see if it was still blocked. They were supposed to be here between 10 and two, but by 3 o'clock no one can give me any information and no one had called. I took Oliver for his nap, and of course, within 15 minutes they called to say that they were on their way. When he got here, I was able to tell him what was going on without waking up Oliver, and then after he ran the camera through all the lines, he texted me to let me know that he found a gigantic root ball in the main line next to the city connection.

He said that the root ball was kind of located in a gray area, and he didn't know if the city would take care of it for free or if it was going to be my responsibility. He said that the root ball was pretty far down, at least 12 feet, and that I should call the city and trying to get them to come out first. He said that if he did it, it would probably take a day and a half and a small crew, they would have to bring out a mini excavator, and it would probably cost $12,000. He said that since it's really close to the city connection, the city might come out and do it for free, and if I called them before five, they would probably come out that day. He told me to explain to them that there was a root ball blocking the flow, and that if I didn't get it taken care of soon it was going to result in yet another sewage back up inside of the house. He said just to tell them that it was on the city side and let them come out and run their camera and decide for sure if it was or wasn't.

So, I got off the phone with him and called the city. Richard had swapped out with me, so he was with Oliver while he was sleeping, and I was in the dining room making phone calls. The city of Coppell is still shut down because of Covid, so I had to leave a message and they said that someone would be in contact. Within about 10 minutes, I got a callback from a guy from the city of Coppell. I explained to him everything that has been going on and how the sewage had backed up into the house multiple times now, and after I got through the whole story, he informed me that they would've done everything that Roto router had done… For free.  He said the city of Coppell offer services to snag the outside line, run a camera, and grind up routes for free. The only thing that they don't do is address indoor plumbing issues. So, he had one of his drain specialist come out this direction, and then he packed up his camera truck and came as well. They got here about two hours later, around 7 PM, and got to work. 

About 30 or 45 minutes later he called me. He asked me to turn on everything in the house and start washing some toilets. So that's what we did. I turned on the bathtubs and sinks and we started flushing the toilet's, and he said that everything was coming through properly on his end, and I didn't see any leakage in here. He said that he spotted the root ball right away. He said it was very big, and he was shocked that we were getting any water flow through it at all. He grounded up the roots, poured some chemicals down to eat them up, and then flush the line. He said there's a crack in the rubber connector between our line in the city line, so he put in a ticket with a sewage department to have them come out and look at it. He said if they decide it needs to be fixed, they'll come out and do it with an excavator, and if they don't think it needs to be fixed and I'm not having any issues, then they will just leave it.

I told him everything the other guy said about it costing $12,000 etc., and he had a good laugh. He said there's no way that we would let any buddy in the city of Coppell pay that much money for plumbing services. He said 98% of the time they get the job taking care of themselves, and they don't particularly care for plumbers because they're not typically very honest.  He did say that there's a possibility that we could continue to have issues with blockages because there is a spot where the pipe has slipped down and some of the water and waste has a slope to climb because of the stretched out rubber connector. So he said if we have issues just to call them.

Honestly, I already feel like the toilets are making a weird noise. I hope it's in my head because I would really like for this chapter of our week to be done and over at this point.

So that was all yesterday. It dominated yet another full day of my attention, and towards the afternoon we were in a sea of rumors about schools starting online only after all of this debate back-and-forth about having kids in school to maintain TEA funding. There were also rumors about governor Abbet shutting down the state of Texas again on Friday, so I told Richard let's go ahead and put together grocery orders for our self and for my dad and get them taken care of before everybody starts panic buying again. 

So, that's what I did today. I spent some of the morning sending over a grocery list to Paula and Carmen, and then I spent much of the afternoon coordinating our grocery delivery and what Carmen could or couldn't find.But, we did have some fun in between it all. I took the kids outside to play in the pool this morning, and it was overcast enough that they got to spend several hours splashing around without fear of sunburns. I think they were out there for three hours total, and Oliver only got out of the pool once. I turned on Spiderman music to keep him happy while I got everything ready to go inside, and then he wanted to get back in the pool for another hour.

While the kids were playing in the pool, I got to do some tidying up and maintenance with the garden. It was only about 95°, heat index of 105, which is an improvement from the 120 that was going on the last day I was out there. I spent some time time checking the hydroponic totes to see how the nutrient levels were doing and if anything needed to be replenished. Quite a few of them we're getting low on water, and all of them were a little bit low on nutrients so I talked them off. We have about a dozen cucumbers growing, but sadly I had to take five or six of them out to the compost bin today because some thing has been eating them. We also lost quite a few leaves to all sorts of pests, and I had to spray a lot of things both inside and outside with neem oil because of spider mites.

Abbot did an interview yesterday saying that he was going to extend the funding. For online only instruction from three weeks to nine weeks. Whereas the TEA had previously said that even in those three weeks you had to provide in school options for children who didn't have the ability to do online schooling, the TEA even came out this evening saying that they will be providing funding to schools regardless of whether they choose to do in the school or distance-learning models for the first… Nine weeks I believe.  Coppell ISD had pushed back their return to school Facebook live session to wait for these announcements, so I will be curious to see how our return to school plans have changed with this new allowance. Obviously, it makes the most sense to not have kids back into the school until you have a plan on how to keep them safe. And no one seems to have one yet. I filled out Penny's commitment form and indicated that regardless, we would not be coming to campus.

The kids played with some toys that Debbie had given them a while back, but we hadn't actually gotten out yet, and then we watched a movie and ate some of our leftover food. We're getting ready to go back out to my dads house this weekend. Scheduling it has been kind of stressful because I'm trying to coordinate with my brother so that he can go out there if he wants to, but he doesn't want to go out within 14 days of us going out, and I don't want to wait a month to see dad if he's not planning on going out at all, and our school approaching… I don't know… I just feel like we should go out there as much as we can before hand. So, I haven't gotten his blessing, but I think we're going to plan on going out there this weekend anyway. We got him some groceries, and I'm just Trying to figure out the best way to go about this. Richard's not gonna be able to take a day off, so I'm either going to have to go out there solo, or we're just gonna have to settle for a shorter trip. I guess we'll see what everybody feels up to as the week progresses. But I know it's gonna take me the better part of a day to pack everything up, and then I also have to make stuff to take with us, and it's the worrying about the meals and watching the kids and watching the dog that just feels like a bit much to handle on my own.

On a cute little sidenote, we recently got Oliver a Spiderman mask. It's been in the yellow room for a while, but I brought it out the other day with all of their dress-up stuff, and it's been a huge hit. He has barely taken it off for the last 48 hours. He even took a nap in it today.