I'm suppose to call this -"My wonderful Hubby"

I am upstairs in the dinning room, just finished dinner - corn beef and cabbage - (Dads' favorite) and Matthew calls from down in the dungeon - "Sue - where did all this water come from?"

Now just to let you know - these are not words you really want to hear. But before I continue maybe I should give a little background information first. First the dungeon is our food storage room directly under our kitchen in the basement. We call it the dungeon because it is cooler and darker than the rest of the basement. Next it is Sunday night at about 4:45 p.m. We have just finished our Irish dinner, my parents are over and Matt is getting ready to go off to work at 5. Now back to my story.

I leave the table and tell my folks to wait a second - I have to help Matt. I go down to the dungeon and there is water on the floor. Matt is checking out the floor on the other side of the wall - the furnish is there and I look up. There is water dripping from the top shelf and the box that was on that shelf is allot darker than it should be - the next shelf is also wet and so is the next shelf. Ugh!!! Something is leaking from the ceiling!!

Matt says "What? The only thing up there is the drain pipe from the kitchen sink" He remembers that he was just doing some of the dirty dishes from dinner and goes up to run water in the kitchen sink. It takes two seconds before I scream "Turn off the water" The drain pipe has an eighteen inch split - lengthwise - and water is spraying out like we where at a water park.
I go and get every rag we have and throw them on the floor to mop up all the water and start moving the food to a dryer place. Matt comes and looks at his watch and says - "well, can you do without a kitchen sink until Saturday?" I look at him and say , threw gritted teeth , "If I have to" Then he says the words that win him the title of this blog - "I guess I can go to work later" - We look things over and decide to cut out about eight feet of the pipe and replace it. For those of you who know my house - on the other side of the wall of the dungeon is a closet of sorts - making it impossible to reach this pipe - then there is a two foot space above the electrical box - then the downstairs bathroom. The only place you can reach this pipe other than the dungeon is over the electrical box. So one cut before the split in the dungeon and one cut over the electrical box.

Question? What is in a drain pipe coming from the kitchen sink, equipped with a garbage disposal?
So I threw some more towels down as water started to pour out the pipe - then I yelled for the electricity to be turned off (being the water was pouring out above the box) - then this is what I found when I found the flashlight. Ground whatever - from dinner and lunch and ??? Gross!!

Matt goes to Lowes and gets a new pipe and in 30 minutes we are all set. Wait - that is only one trip to the hardware store. The experts say that it takes an average of three trips. What do they know.

Matt goes up to the kitchen to turn on the water to just make sure. Things are looking good and Matt says - "I think I'll still go to work now" and starts to get ready.

"Maaaattt!" I call out. "There is water leaking out of this part of the pipe"

Yes, folks - we didn't get everything - there is another split and this time it isn't easy to cut the pipe. We have to make a cut between the floor Joice's. A saw won't fit - we try my Dremel but the blades keep breaking. So now Matt gets the air compressor out of the shop - it needs to be plugged into a 220 plug and the only one we have is in the front of the house by the porch. So we take out the window of the spare bedroom and run the air hose to the dungeon to run the air saw that will fit between the floor supports.Window out - good thing it was good weather!!


Tight spot - but the right saw does the work.


Matt with the correct saw and the next piece of pipe to get replaced.

So off to Lowes for trip number two. Now when Matt took out that last pipe some nuclear waste fell out of it on to the floor.I never put grease down my drain and this stuff was nothing but grease and oil. Where it came from - I only know the answer to be the pipe but????? So while Matt was at the hardware store for the second time -I cleaned up some of the mess - load number one of towels was done and ready for the dryer and load two went into the wash.

Matt home and once again the pipes where replaced. This time it was my turn to go upstairs to run the water in the kitchen. I did and well the water didn't go down the drain. The sink just filled up. "MAAAAAT" I called out.

Now this didn't make any sense. The water always went down the drain and it looked like what should have plugged the pipe was already on the floor of the dungeon. We tried plunging the drain for awhile but nothing. We took the drain apart and checked the trap.
More water all over the place. The dry towels from the dryer are now on the wet kitchen floor. Doesn't matter cause the trap is clear. We get a snake and nothing - we take apart what was done downstairs and snake the pipe up to the kitchen - nothing!! Matt puts everything back together and we use the plunger again - nothing.

Trip number three to the store - for Draino!!! We couldn't think of anything else. Matt pours a whole bottle down the drain and we wait. Fifteen minutes is a long time to wait. I put another load of towels into to washer another into the dryer and use a few more from the dryer to mop up more water. Time is up and we turn on the hot water - nothing. We use the plunger again and this time it works - the plug is broken and water drains. Now we can check to see if the pipe Matt replaced works or leaks.

It works - YEA!!!!!! But now I have all the cleaning to do. It is past 9p.m. now - I clean up all the standing water and the really gross stuff. It is too late to continue , we both have to work the next day and well , at our age we need our sleep. Don't worry I did finish cleaning Monday after work.

Matt has to get up at 3 a.m. to go off to work now - why couldn't things have happened Friday night or Saturday? But then I am very thankful it didn't happen 20 minutes later when Matt was already off to work. What could have been a very expensive repair from a plumber - my terrific hubby fixed it all for less than $50. Way to go Matt - you are wonderful.

Through all of this - I just kept saying - oh good - now I have something to blog about!!