Recipe for Disaster

The drain pipe--how did water get through this?

Take one old house, add 70 year old pipes and drains, one clogged kitchen drain, one plunger, one plumbing snake, one bottle of liquid drain cleaner and you still have a clogged drain after several hours of frustration.

Add one engineer and one lawyer with tools, pipes, saws, fittings, lots of noise, messy blackish water, one completely confused cat who is terrified and bouncing off the walls, hours and hours, now days without said sink. Stir it up and bake. Result, the drainpipe has been removed but the new one is not yet installed, the clog is gone but the sink is still not usable. We can do this. Just a couple more days they promise.

The drainpipe was completely plugged with rust just porous enough to let water flow through but anything else – no way – hence the plug. It is hard to imagine how even water got through this pipe.

I can’t thank my DIY guys enough for all their hours and labor. I think we all could almost hear Bopa giving his usual sage advice and comments from the other side of the veil.

Engineer Bee confers with Curly while surveying the damage, er, the progress.