There it is!

I finally caught one of Lucy's smiles on camera. Her smiles are becoming more frequent now which is a lot of fun.

And we thought we were done...

After all the sewer and plumbing craziness that happened 2 weeks ago we thought we'd gotten everything taken care of. I think I mentioned in my last entry on this subject that we had to have some guys come and snake our drain because they thought that after all the work being done the trap was clogged. Parks Sewer came out and did just that, but all that happened was black muddy water pooled up around our drain. Still nothing would go down. Parks contacted the people who did the job and told them what happened and come to find out that when the guys were hooking our new sewer line back up they didn't connect this drain. Luckily we have 2 drains and this was the floor drain that is just for draining any water we get in the basement. All the water from the house and laundry goes down another drain and then out the house where the two lines are supposed to connect. So, they have to come back out and dig up a section of the trench again and reconnect this line. This is getting frustrating!!!

6 weeks old

Here's a picture of Lucy. She turned 6 weeks yesterday. I wanted to take a one month picture, but we were in the midst of our sewer problems and staying at my parent's house when she turned one month. With all that was going on I just didn't think about it, and when I did I didn't have her outfit or the camera with me.

Why is she wearing a huge onesie? This was mom's idea. She saw this done on Martha Stewart. I am supposed to put her in this each month on her birthday and take her picture. Then at the end of the year we can look back and see how much she's grown into the 12 month outfit. I am not sure what to do if she grows into it sooner than 12 months. I'll have to figure it out when the time comes.

I can't believe that she's already 6 weeks. She's changed so much already. She just started smiling but she makes us wait for them. She's only doing it about once a day. I can't wait till we see that toothless grin all the time.

Home Sweet Home

Well, after a week of being out of our house, we are finally home. The plumbers finished up on Thursday and got the water turned back on.

I last blogged on Tuesday about our flooded basement. That was just one of the many "incidents" that happened during the week. After all that rain on Monday, the workers could not come back till Wednesday to start up again. They had a few setbacks that day that prevented them from finishing the job by that afternoon. First the Bobcat they were using broke down and they had fix it which took a few hours and second, one of the guys was injured on the job. While working down in the trench, a 10-12 foot section of our concrete curb broke off and fell into the trench landing on this guy's foot. They had to take him to get it looked at to make sure it wasn't broken. Last I heard, it was just a bad sprain.

Then Thursday morning I called Dan to see how the work was going and he was in the process of trying to locate the breaker for the garage. The pump they were using to get all the water out of the trench was plugged into an outlet in our garage. The pump tripped the breaker and Dan was trying to locate the box. Just as he feared the box was in the garage. for most people this wouldn't be a problem, but you see, we only have an overhead door as access to the inside. The only way inside is to use the garage door opener. With the breaker tripped, the opener doesn't do us much good. So Dan had to break the latch on the window and one of the workers crawled through and all was well. Except now Dan has to fix the broken latch.

Finally, Thursday afternoon, they were filling the trench in with dirt and cleaning up the huge mess in our neighbor's driveway. With the exception of our torn up front yard, it looked like things were going to get back to normal...we couldn't get off that easy. In trying to get the basement floor cleaned up, Dan sprayed water on the floor and it collected at the drain like it's supposed to BUT it won't drain. The other drain that's connected to the washing machine drains just fine. We now have to have it snaked because they think the trap is clogged.

In all this, we got the nicest note from our neighbors down the street. Inside was a giftcard to Pizza Hut. The card said, "Between the plumbing and the new baby we thought you could use a pizza". How nice! So last night, we ordered pizza.

And the water saga continues....

I was wrong. Now things have gone from bad to worse. Yesterday the plumbers came and started digging up our sewer line and they got about half way to the street and then quit for the day. With the rain coming they didn't want to tear out our backwater valve and leave the line open. They said they would come back today to finish the job. Dan got up early to go to the house to be there when the plumbers came back and then he was going to work. I also went in to stay at the house, since Dan had to go to work, so that they could have access to the basement. I got to the house this morning, took some stuff in and found Dan talking to one of the workers in our backyard. I stepped down the back steps off the kitchen and looked down into the basement and the sight I saw made me want to cry. Our entire basement was flooded with about 3 inches of muddy water. When the plumbers left yesterday they capped off the line as best they could, but we got so much rain last night that the 6ft deep trench was half filled with water and all that water seeped into our basement. I'm assuming Dan called them this morning when he discovered the mess. By the time I got there they had a pump in the trench that was pumping the water out into our backyard. I'm hoping the basement will be drained by late aftenoon. Dan is needing to work down there to get orders out. The plumbers obviously can't do any work today because of all the excess water. They are supposed to come back tomorrow and I HOPE they get it fixed and we can be done with all this mess. Although, now we have an even bigger mess to to deal with. Once this water drains we will be left with a muddy basement that will have to be cleaned. I don't think too much will be lost because we were always prepared for water and kept everything in rubbermaid tubs or up off the floor. BUT, all those tubs will need to be moved so the floor underneath can dry.
I guess we'll be staying at mom and dads for another night.

Welcome to the Ryan Motel, We'll keep the light on for ya

(This is an update to my last post. So read that first if you haven't done so already.)

Well, this past week our water problems went from bad to worse. Thursday evening Dan came home from work and went down to the basement to do some work. He came back up and told me we had water coming through the cracks in the cement floor. We are assuming the water main leak has gotten progressively worse and with the ground frozen this leaking water had no where to go but under our house and up through the cracks. We'd already scheduled the plumbers to come Monday morning and start the huge undertaking of replacing our entire sewer line, but this new problem could not wait till Monday. The water would just continue to seep in and have no where to go. The solution? Have our water shut off. Dan called the emergency city number and a truck came out right away to shut off our water. This was about 8pm when all this happened. We could not stay at a house without water so I called mom and dad and asked if they'd like company for a few days. Dan decided to stay behind for the night to try and get some work done, but I packed Lucy and myself up and headed to my parents. So, we've been camping out here for the last several days and the workers are supposed to come tomorrow but they are calling for rain. I'm not sure if they can do this job if it's raining.

I'll keep ya posted on the situation.

The joys of being a homeowner

Many of you who read this know that Dan and I have had water issues with this house from the very beginning. Our house was a rental before we bought it so since the owner never lived here, he couldn't say whether or not the basement got water. Well, it does and has been a constant source of problems for us. The first thing we did after moving in was have a back-water valve installed in our sewer line. This was supposed to stop any city water from coming in our line during heavy rains. We forked over $1500 to have this put in and while it does work, we still got water during heavy rains. Then we put new gutters on the house and had the backyard patio redone and those two things helped keep the water out some as well. Our latest problem has been that our drains have been backing up. I usually discover they are clogged when I'm doing laundry and the washer is draining. The line can't keep up with the flow of water from the washer and it backs up into our laundry sink or onto the floor. We've had our drains snaked at least a have dozen times since we've been here, and 3 of those have been in the last 6-8 weeks.
Well, after 3 years of trying to figure out this problem, we've finally figured out why all this keeps happening. When the sewer guys were here snaking our drain, they would get about 20 feet out and then not be able to go any further. They suggested getting someone out to put a camera down the drain to find out the problem. They thought we might have a slipped tile.
Sure enough. We have a slipped tile which is causing debris to get clogged easily, which is why the line won't drain. But it's worse than that. There's a whole section of old clay tile that is slipped and broken AND there's a leak in the city's water main that runs to our house. The leak is before our meter and so we never noticed it on our water bill. This is why we are continuing to get water in the basement when it rains. The back water valve is doing it's job, but this leak is pouring water into our line and then it comes up in our basement.
So, what's the solution? We have to replace our entire sewer line and get the water main fixed. The line runs along the north side of our house next to our brand new curb and neighbor's drive way. The new curb will most likely get destroyed when they dig, so we'll have to have that redone as well as replace a section of the city sidewalk.
What's all this going to cost? Yeah, don't ask. Let's just say when it's all said and done and we've paid for the new line, the new cement work, and the leveling of the yard, we could purchase a VERY nice used car, or take a 2 week vacation to Hawaii at a top resort.

I guess this is the risk you take when you buy an old home with 100 year old sewer lines.