I was going to title this post, “A story about my hole,” but I had second thoughts. Yet, this post does revolve around the hole as shown in the picture below.
Two weekends ago, we were making serious progress on the basement renovation. Earlier, I primed all of the bead board, base board, and chair rail for the bathroom (you can see some of it at the top of the photo). Slowsky and I spent that Saturday installing it, along with the rest of the bathroom door frame. Then that night, Jenny and I put two finish coats of paint on everything to get it ready for Sunday. Slowsky returned, and with the walls done, we started installing the sink vanity, and plumbing fixtures. We “finished” the sink, “”finished” the shower plumbing, and then set out to work on the closet flange (for those of you not in the working trades, the closet flange is what you attach the toilet to) as shown in the picture. Oh, and that is Slowsky’s tile job, not bad, eh?
Yes, this is a "closet flange"
To keep the sewer gas and sewer critters out of our house all this time since we broke through the basement foundation many months ago, we have had a plastic bag stuffed with rags shoved in the hole. Well, you can imagine what might have built up on the other side of that “plug.” So, Slowsky suggested that I push the plug deeper into the hole while I install the closet flange. I did so, glued in the flange, and considered the day a success. The flange has a sealed cap on it (it was removed by the time I took this photo), so normally after it is installed, you leave the cap on until we are ready to install the toilet.
We turned the water back on, and I went to start cleaning up. I walked by the deep sink in the utility room that we had previously installed, and saw that it had standing water in it. The drain to the sink feeds into the same line as the closet flange. Hmmmm… I informed Slowsky and he knew right away that the plug in the sewer must have slipped down slightly. No biggy though.
I decided I would open the sealed top of the closet flange, to retrieve the plug, since about four feet south of this hole, these pipes connect to the main sewer line for the rest of the house.
Just before I was going to crack it open, we tested the shower for the first time, and nada. A trickle of water, but that was it. I said, “dad, what’s up?”. Slowsky replied, “not sure… but why is all of that water on the floor?”. He was pointing to the floor near the sink, where a good half-gallon was crawling along the wall. That made us 0 for 3.
He got right to work on the sink, and I went for more tools. I again passed the deep sink expecting to see the standing water, but it was empty. That meant the sewer plug moved further down the line.
So let’s recap, shower not working, sink leaking, and sewer line has a massive bag of rags in it crawling toward the main line, which would stop up the ENTIRE house.
I cracked open the closet flange, and sure enough, the plug was missing. Even if I wanted to stick my hand in there it was impossible. It is a three inch pipe with a 90 degree bend at the start. At the same time slowsky had the sink running, and I saw the sewer hole slowly filling to the top with water–meaning two things. The plug was at least 3 feet down the line(where the sink drain runs into it, and that in a few minutes, I’d have sewer water bubbling up in my new bathroom.
I curled up in the fetal position and started to suck my thumb. Slowsky decided a better approach was to go fishing for the bag-o-rags. MacGyver stepped in, took at clothes hanger, straightened it out, made one side into a small handle, and the other into a large cork screw. He fished the wire down the sewer until he found the plug (about three feet), then with a pliers, began rotating the wire to get the corkscrew wrapped up in the plug. Slowly he started pulling it out, and it seemed to be working. But, the sewer water on our side of the plug had no where to go. So while he pulled, I took a Dixie cup (holding it with pliers because the water was poo-poo), and started ladling water out and into a bucket.
Anyway, we finally got the plug out, repaired the leaking sink, and found the source of the problem with the shower head. So all was good. In the end, my hole was plug free, and dry. Isn’t that how all stories should end?
