I'm tired of dealing with shit.

[Kyuur]

Every year, without fail, we run into plumbing problems with our manufactured home. I'm pretty sure it's cursed.

This year I've again opened the belly of the beast and found sewage layered on the ground. Instead of just calling the plumber right away and letting them deal with it this year I think I'm going to take a more active approach and investigate and cleanup myself so that someone doesn't just come in, do the quick fix for this to repeat itself next year. It's probably going to end up with me replacing the plumbing altogether and cost a crap ton but it'll be worth it to hopefully never deal with this again (or at least for some time).

It could be worse. At least I don't have shit coming literally through out of faucets like a family member once did.

Share your plumbing horror stories Era. Bonus if you're a plumber cause you've probably seen bad things.

 

[xxracerxx]

Better call the Super Mario Bros.

 

[Deleted member 2809]

Pipe maze is some RNG bullshit

 

[Derachi]

insert mario joke because wrong side

sorry OP. I wish you luck.

 

[Ashodin]

Have you tried resetting

 

[bonch00ski]

Maybe you’re not pressing X fast enough to stop the leak.

 

[ToddBonzalez]

Yeah man, I hated those pipe rotation minigames in Bioshock.

 

[Nolbertos]

Mario and Luigi on the case

 

[monmagman]

Try calling that Italian guy.....I forget his name.

 

[Kyuur]

Damn, it's too easy to make threads in the wrong section. :(

 

[Easy_D]

Worst I ever had was flushing and water coming up the shower drain.. which sucked but wasn't anything that wasn't easily fixable by myself

 

[entremet]

Shitty situation, OP. Sorry.

 

[MisterSnrub]

Try up down left right A+Start button

 

[HalStep]

Maybe you’re not pressing X fast enough to stop the leak.

Click to shrink...

or they are supposed to stop pressing X.

 

[Soul Skater]

 

[Geist 6one7]

 

[Ferrio]

Share your plumbing horror stories Era. Bonus if you're a plumber cause you've probably seen bad things.

Click to shrink...

We left the garage open during -40F weather this winter, almost busted all our pipes. Luckily only one (already shut off pipe) burst, still need to figure out how I'm fixing that this summer. Should just hire a plumber, kinda kicking around the idea doing it myself even though I don't know wtf I'm doing.

 

[jon bones]

i bought a house, everything looked good, inspection passed

after just 1 month the basement flooded because the water heater broke

 

[Takatomon]

My house had to have an entire new plumbing installed ~10 years ago because the original shitty one ran through the house so to replace it we'd have to break and replace the whole floor too. The new one rouns around the house so if we ever need to do anything it's out there.

 

[Kyuur]

i bought a house, everything looked good, inspection passed

after just 1 month the basement flooded because the water heater broke

Click to shrink...

That sucks!

When we bought this place we were told that it had known problems with the pipes freezing and bursting but the previous owner paid to get stuff re-insulated before we took ownership and that was going to resolve it, but here we are...

 

[Acidote]

i bought a house, everything looked good, inspection passed

after just 1 month the basement flooded because the water heater broke

Click to shrink...

I bought my house knowing I would have to replace EVERYTHING. It had 30 year old low quality wiring and pipes. I'm still renovating the place (and expanding the living room, kitchen and main bedroom since I'm at it) before moving in. So much money I don't really have yet.

 

[2PiR]

Never experienced a plumbing issue, sounds like a nightmare

 

[LunaSerena]

Wait for a natural disaster OP. Trying to find what the 2010 Chile earthquake broke and what it didn't was fun (not really). Thankfully the damage was not in the potable water system, but in the pipes of the pool that lead to the pump. Still costed us a pretty penny.

 

[Kyuur]

Wait for a natural disaster OP. Trying to find what the 2010 Chile earthquake broke and what it didn't was fun (not really). Thankfully the damage was not in the potable water system, but in the pipes of the pool that lead to the pump. Still costed us a pretty penny.

Click to shrink...

Luckily I live basically untouched by natural disasters (so far, pls stop climate change). Sounds terrible since I can imagine you would be dealing with other problems in addition too. I've heard that housing architecture is done differently in places where earthquakes are common; is there anything that can be done for plumbing that is special in this regard?

Getting sewage and potable water mixed up is basically my nightmare.

 

[Cordy]

Honestly, I'm glad this was the thread rather than something far worse lol.

But on the real, reading threads like this make me wary of getting a home in the future. I'm gonna be looking for a house within the next 18 months or so so reading stories like this makes me think of different things that might come up. I don't even know what all goes into keeping a home in tip top condition.

 

[Spenny]

I had a rat in the walls that would chew hole through our pex piping every day over the course of 3 weeks to the tune of about $10k in repairs. After the sixth time the plumber came I gleaned enough info off of them to do it myself. After that the price went from $500 an incident to $14. Eventually I caught the fucker in our garage and took care of him.

 

[LunaSerena]

Luckily I live basically untouched by natural disasters (so far, pls stop climate change). Sounds terrible since I can imagine you would be dealing with other problems in addition too. I've heard that housing architecture is done differently in places where earthquakes are common; is there anything that can be done for plumbing that is special in this regard?

Getting sewage and potable water mixed up is basically my nightmare.

Click to shrink...

Usually precautions are needed, but the guy who build the pool was a third rate hack that was hired to bring down costs. Big mistake.
He basically used the lowest quality materials you could find, which led to a couple of pipes breaking from the force of the quake, which meant just making a hole and destroying part of the yard.

Usually architecture relating to earthquakes is focused more on the house not collapsing on top of you, to preserve life, rather than avoiding damage - problems like mine, while annoying, mean the architecture was solid. Talking about pipes, the idea is using materials with a degree of flexibility like PVC, that can be put under some amount of strain before cracking instead of stuff like iron or rigid materials that will simply break.

 

[DirtyLarry]

The main sewage line out of my house backs up at least once a year due to a tree in the front yard and the roots getting through the old pipes since the house is from the 50's. Only way for it to get resolved is a super big industrial size snakes and them coming in to break up the roots with it. In fact it just happened like a month and a half ago. We thought somehow we avoided it this year, but that was not the case.
I know what needs to be done to fix it, remove the tree completely and redo the entire sewage line, but low end estimates for both are around 18k. That is low end.
Fortunately we get warning signs, the closest toilet starts to gurgle, so we know at that point not to run water unless absolutely necessary and call a plumber. We have had to resort to paying for monthly insurance through out water company for it, which I think is about $20 a month, and then a $50 copayment when they sound someone out. That actually winds up being less than if we were to pay a plumber outright to do it, as not all of them have the proper type of industrial snake to do it, and it is always a two man job due to the length of the coil they need.
It sucks and is one of just many reasons I feel owning a home is overrated in many ways.
Best of luck fixing it on your own!

 

[mhayes86]

A friend of mine and his wife bought a nice $500k house about eight years ago, and they had constant plumbing issues. The previous owners seemed to do a lot of home renovation on their own. While furnishing the livingroom, my friend removed a nail from the wall and discovered (a couple weeks later) that it was stuck through a pipe from their master bathroom, which caused water to leak through the wall and onto their wooden floor. Their ceiling has had a leak several times from upstairs bathrooms (living room ceiling and dining room ceiling), and most recently their well filter broke and leaked into their basement.

Aside from those, their water heater had to be replaced twice, their basement flooded a few times from rain since a drain by their door would get clogged, a brick walkway they had landscapers build caused water from rain to move towards a basement window and flood through. Finally after over a year of trying to move, they're having a house built and have their current house under contract at the moment. I feel bad for the potential buyers.

I dread a plumbing issue. The water heater when I bought my townhouse was 30 years old, but I just replaced that back in January. My water heater and washer are both on the top floor since I have no basement.

 

[Deleted member 11822]

Honestly, I'm glad this was the thread rather than something far worse lol.

But on the real, reading threads like this make me wary of getting a home in the future. I'm gonna be looking for a house within the next 18 months or so so reading stories like this makes me think of different things that might come up. I don't even know what all goes into keeping a home in tip top condition.

Click to shrink...

If you see a sump pump or french drain in the basement, or if the foundation is made of fieldstone RUN!

In our first house we had all three. One winter an ice storm knocked out power for 5 days. With no power and now generator to be found within 200mi I spent 3 days pumping water out just to keep it from reaching the furnace our fire department did come by once to pump out the basement as well.
At one point I went to a boat shop purchased 3 batteries, and 3 bilge pumps just to keep the water at Bay until I got a loaner generator from a friend.
I installed a water driven pump later that year so something like that never happens again, and I made sure to show the new owners how it worked after we moved out.

 

[kiaaa]

I know residential plumbing is relatively simple OP, but I wouldn't mess with it unless you really know what you're doing.

 

[FaceHugger]

Sorry to hear, that sounds like it sucks. For me, my luck, when one thing goes wrong suddenly five other things do in rapid succession.

For example, a few weeks ago I confirmed that one of my tires is slowly losing air, setting off the tire pressure monitor in my car every two and half weeks or so. My car has less than 5,000 miles, so that sucks. I go to fill it up with my portable air compressor only to discover it died while sitting in my trunk barely used.

So I buy a new expensive heavy-duty one from Amazon. I get it, use it, all is well. I am going to put it away in my closet and the door handle comes right off the closet door. Well, at least my toolbox is right in front of me in the closet. So I fix the handle, all is good. Go to take a well deserved big morning dump, and one of the plastic screws that holds the seat on cracks, so the seat is sliding around. Had to go buy a new toilet seat and replace it (made sure to get a wooden one with big, strong metal screws and washers this time).

Not sure what will go wrong next. Like I said, these things tend to come in fives for me.

 

[Random Painted Highway]

Tree root crushed our sewage pipe in the back yard. Out at midnight scoping it. Had the incoming pipe replaced as well. 12k but the insurance company ended up picking up I want to say about 5k of that. This was a year ago last week, our 16th wedding anniversary big plans that had to get cancelled. Only without water for a day, but a couple days if we flushed it was just accumulating in the backyard... A year later everything is great and better than ever, I used to have to auger the toilets all the time but now the flow is way improved. But we are going to have to read the backyard at some point.

 

[Kyuur]

The main sewage line out of my house backs up at least once a year due to a tree in the front yard and the roots getting through the old pipes since the house is from the 50's. Only way for it to get resolved is a super big industrial size snakes and them coming in to break up the roots with it. In fact it just happened like a month and a half ago. We thought somehow we avoided it this year, but that was not the case.
I know what needs to be done to fix it, remove the tree completely and redo the entire sewage line, but low end estimates for both are around 18k. That is low end.
Fortunately we get warning signs, the closest toilet starts to gurgle, so we know at that point not to run water unless absolutely necessary and call a plumber. We have had to resort to paying for monthly insurance through out water company for it, which I think is about $20 a month, and then a $50 copayment when they sound someone out. That actually winds up being less than if we were to pay a plumber outright to do it, as not all of them have the proper type of industrial snake to do it, and it is always a two man job due to the length of the coil they need.
It sucks and is one of just many reasons I feel owning a home is overrated in many ways.
Best of luck fixing it on your own!

Click to shrink...

I remember looking into insurance last year but it was really pricey in our area, like 100-200 a month. Seemed like the insurance would cost us at least as much as calling out someone to do the yearly job (and I'm sure they never spring for fully fixing the problem).

Underground problems are the scariest. My grandmother had to get a bunch of stuff done but luckily it was close enough to the road that the town had to deal with it. Hope you can avoid having to pay that much in the future!

A friend of mine and his wife bought a nice $500k house about eight years ago, and they had constant plumbing issues. The previous owners seemed to do a lot of home renovation on their own. While furnishing the livingroom, my friend removed a nail from the wall and discovered (a couple weeks later) that it was stuck through a pipe from their master bathroom, which caused water to leak through the wall and onto their wooden floor. Their ceiling has had a leak several times from upstairs bathrooms (living room ceiling and dining room ceiling), and most recently their well filter broke and leaked into their basement.

Aside from those, their water heater had to be replaced twice, their basement flooded a few times from rain since a drain by their door would get clogged, a brick walkway they had landscapers build caused water from rain to move towards a basement window and flood through. Finally after over a year of trying to move, they're having a house built and have their current house under contract at the moment. I feel bad for the potential buyers.

I dread a plumbing issue. The water heater when I bought my townhouse was 30 years old, but I just replaced that back in January. *My water heater and washer are both on the top floor since I have no basement.*

Click to shrink...

Scary. I hope your insurance will cover it if anything happens.

 

[mhayes86]

Scary. I hope your insurance will cover it if anything happens.

Click to shrink...

It does, though I'm sure there's some stipulation that allows the insurance company to weasel out of it. For what it's worth, the water heater and washer are both in fairly deep drip pans connected to a pipe for draining, and the plumbers for the water heater replaced some piping and added a safety tank. Granted, I'm not entirely sure where those drains lead, heh.

My wife and I plan to move within the next year, and if we go with another house, third floor water appliances are a no go. Hell, third floor appliance in general since many places charge extra for installation due to stairs.

 

[Cordy]

If you see a sump pump or french drain in the basement, or if the foundation is made of fieldstone RUN!

In our first house we had all three. One winter an ice storm knocked out power for 5 days. With no power and now generator to be found within 200mi I spent 3 days pumping water out just to keep it from reaching the furnace our fire department did come by once to pump out the basement as well.
At one point I went to a boat shop purchased 3 batteries, and 3 bilge pumps just to keep the water at Bay until I got a loaner generator from a friend.
I installed a water driven pump later that year so something like that never happens again, and I made sure to show the new owners how it worked after we moved out.

Click to shrink...

Wow that sounds CRAZY. I can't even imagine the stress and money all of that was let alone the effort damn.

 

[Robaperas]

It could be worse. At least I don't have shit coming literally through out of faucets like a family member once did.

Click to shrink...

Now that sounds like a nightmare to fix, I can't think of a way to do such a poor job, that you get shit coming through the pipes. Maybe water from a well?

As a plumber, if you don't know what you're doing, or what to do if something goes wrong, just call a professional, you may end up doing more damage to the drainage.

_____

The only nightmarish thing I remember is fixing a 2nd floor toilet that was clogged, looking for the drainage pipes I saw a small piece of 110mm PVC pipe coming out of the ground, in the middle of the front yard, I looked inside and it had just a bit of water running, someone inserted the piece of pipe all the way down a tee, so I thought, maybe this is has something to do with the clogging. When I pulled the piece of pipe, about 2 weeks of toilet water came up the pipe like a shit tsunami. Lost a pair of work shoes and pants but at least we found the problem.

 

[evrythngwastakn]

I just had to pry a constipated hard clump of shit out of my three year old’s asshole since it was stuck half way and he wasn’t able to get it out after sitting on the toilet for 10 minutes.

And then when I did the laundry I smelled something, well it was a lump of cat shit that ended up getting tossed in with the clothes so there’s $2.25 wasted and back in the machine it goes.

Fucking shit man.

 

[Deleted member 11822]

Wow that sounds CRAZY. I can't even imagine the stress and money all of that was let alone the effort damn.

Click to shrink...

I learned a lot from that experience, but yes overall it was incredibly stressful. One of the things I really enjoyed about it was coming up with as many "MacGyver" solutions as possible. My partner and I had only been in the house for about 3mo when all of this happened, and we had to buy a new water heater as a result of all the flooding.
When it came time for x-mas that year we both were in 0 fucks mode about the holidays so we decorated a rocking chair, with one gift for each of us, and put a bow on the water heater.

Oddly enough it was one of the best x-mas ever.