Oh boy, there's plumbers under the house as I speak, with a jackhammer,
tearing up a collapsed vintage sewer line and replacing it. One of those
jobs where the final cost only goes up, never down. They just found a
66-year-old code violation, I wonder who I should complain to about that?
Think the city will apologize and cut me a check for failing to do the
original inspection properly? Har har har har. Ouch.

On Tue, 14 Oct 2008 14:03:35 -0700, DGDevin wrote:

Oh boy, there's plumbers under the house as I speak, with a jackhammer,
tearing up a collapsed vintage sewer line and replacing it. One of
those jobs where the final cost only goes up, never down. They just
found a 66-year-old code violation, I wonder who I should complain to
about that? Think the city will apologize and cut me a check for failing
to do the original inspection properly? Har har har har. Ouch.

checkbook??

*CHECKBOOK?????*

A plumber under the house is not a checkbook range of money where I come
from. Maybe for the down-payment deposit, yes. This sounds like a Home
Improvement Loan at least.

Well, provided you ain't laughed at when you go to the bank for the Loan.

Best of luck,

And you found someone that actually admits to knowing the construction codes
from 1942? My guess is it is against the current code, but probably wasn't
against the old code. Which, in most cases, unless the area he is actually
working on is involved, you should not need to bring it up to current code
unless there is a real safety concern.


"DGDevin" wrote in message
m...
Oh boy, there's plumbers under the house as I speak, with a jackhammer,
tearing up a collapsed vintage sewer line and replacing it. One of those
jobs where the final cost only goes up, never down. They just found a
66-year-old code violation, I wonder who I should complain to about that?
Think the city will apologize and cut me a check for failing to do the
original inspection properly? Har har har har. Ouch.

Phil Again wrote:
On Tue, 14 Oct 2008 14:03:35 -0700, DGDevin wrote:

Oh boy, there's plumbers under the house as I speak, with a
jackhammer, tearing up a collapsed vintage sewer line and replacing
it. One of those jobs where the final cost only goes up, never
down. They just found a 66-year-old code violation, I wonder who I
should complain to about that? Think the city will apologize and cut
me a check for failing to do the original inspection properly? Har
har har har. Ouch.

checkbook??

*CHECKBOOK?????*

A plumber under the house is not a checkbook range of money where I
come from. Maybe for the down-payment deposit, yes. This sounds
like a Home Improvement Loan at least.

Well, provided you ain't laughed at when you go to the bank for the
Loan.

Best of luck,

We caught a break. They replaced about thirty feet of small Orangeburg
sewer line (laundry drain) and ten feet of larger diameter under the house
to where it joined up with the 4" cast iron pipe. Got to watch the video
inspection and the cast iron was intact all the way to the city line under
the street, yay! Thenon-iron was not only broken in several spots but was
*stuffed* with tree roots. So while it cost a thousand more than the
original estimate (due to more work being required) it actually came to a
thousand less than I figured it might. The cool thing is this company works
on a fixed price, they say what it costs and then don't slow down like
companies charging by the hour. The price only goes up if the size of the
job increases. Nice guy doing the work, explained everything every step of
the way, did a neat job with frequent explanations of code requirements and
cleaned up everything nice and tidy before leaving. Even fixed a couple of
small unrelated issues with no extra charge, like a flimsy laundry sink
hookup and an old gas line from a long-gone hot-tub.

I am now a big fan of video inspection of sewer pipes. The first inspection
proved the pipe was collapsed and full of tree roots, the second (beyond the
worst collapse) was at no additional cost. If you are in doubt about
whether to dig up your sewer lines it's worth a couple of hundred bucks to
have them send down a camera, answers a lot of question before the
jackhammers start.

DGDevin wrote:
Oh boy, there's plumbers under the house as I speak, with a jackhammer,
tearing up a collapsed vintage sewer line and replacing it. One of those
jobs where the final cost only goes up, never down. They just found a
66-year-old code violation, I wonder who I should complain to about that?
Think the city will apologize and cut me a check for failing to do the
original inspection properly? Har har har har. Ouch.


Hell that's nothing, one of my customers had his
restaurant shut down for a week when it was
discovered that years before, the sewer line for
his building had been tied into the storm drain.
How's that for a delayed gotcha?

TDD

Mark wrote:

And you found someone that actually admits to knowing the
construction codes from 1942? My guess is it is against the current
code, but probably wasn't against the old code. Which, in most
cases, unless the area he is actually working on is involved, you
should not need to bring it up to current code unless there is a real
safety concern.

He's worked on lots of houses from that era and so had perhaps been told by
an inspector who knew a bit of history, something like that, I don't suppose
he'd actually looked it up. That kind of pipe apparently wasn't supposed to
be used under the foundation presumably since it wouldn't have the lifespan
of iron and would be more likely to need replacement much earlier. I'd
guess it wasn't used for sanitary drains at all. Amazing it lasted this
long really. I thought maybe it was a wartime thing to deal with iron
shortages but apparently it goes back to the late 1800s. It hasn't been
used since the 1970s from what I could see. In any case all that pipe had
to go because it had failed and not being able to do laundry just wasn't an
option. I couldn't believe the tree roots in there, the pipe was just
packed with them.

I'll tell you one thing I learned from him, if I ever consider buying an
older home again a video check of the sewer lines will be on the list. We
had no problem that we knew of a month ago, but in the last week doing
laundry had become an adventure. Spending a couple of hundred bucks on a
video inspection of the sewer lines could save you thousands in repair costs
when buying a house with drains that are already in trouble, the owners just
don't know it yet.

The Daring Dufas wrote:

Hell that's nothing, one of my customers had his
restaurant shut down for a week when it was
discovered that years before, the sewer line for
his building had been tied into the storm drain.
How's that for a delayed gotcha?

TDD

Depending on state disclosure law that sounds like something he could take a
previous owner to court over.

DGDevin wrote:
The Daring Dufas wrote:

Hell that's nothing, one of my customers had his
restaurant shut down for a week when it was
discovered that years before, the sewer line for
his building had been tied into the storm drain.
How's that for a delayed gotcha?

TDD

Depending on state disclosure law that sounds like something he could take a
previous owner to court over.


The owner of the building paid for the repair. The
owner is not the original owner. I think the property
has changed hands a dozen times and the original owner
is long dead. Hell, dig him up and sue him.

TDD

Depending on state disclosure law that sounds like something he
could take a previous owner to court over.


The owner of the building paid for the repair. The
owner is not the original owner. I think the property
has changed hands a dozen times and the original owner
is long dead. Hell, dig him up and sue him.

TDD

Oh, as you didn't specify it was a rental situation I figured maybe the
restaurant operator had bought the place. It's good the owner paid for the
fix (as he should have), but the restaurant operator still lost a week's
revenue. If he's otherwise happy with the owner he probably doesn't want to
make an issue of that however. I suppose the current owner could go after
whichever previous owner had allowed the non-code sewer hookup, but he might
spend more on lawyers than it would be worth.

DGDevin wrote:
Depending on state disclosure law that sounds like something he
could take a previous owner to court over.


The owner of the building paid for the repair. The
owner is not the original owner. I think the property
has changed hands a dozen times and the original owner
is long dead. Hell, dig him up and sue him.

TDD

Oh, as you didn't specify it was a rental situation I figured maybe the
restaurant operator had bought the place. It's good the owner paid for the
fix (as he should have), but the restaurant operator still lost a week's
revenue. If he's otherwise happy with the owner he probably doesn't want to
make an issue of that however. I suppose the current owner could go after
whichever previous owner had allowed the non-code sewer hookup, but he might
spend more on lawyers than it would be worth.


It happened something like a year ago and I'm now in the process
of helping him move to another location about a half mile away.
I have to get permits for the low voltage wiring today for the
computer network, phone system, cameras and door lock. We're
going to move two walk in coolers and one AC unit from the old
location so it's going to be a lot of fun just like all remodel
jobs. Damn I'm tired but I'm glad to be working and not sitting
on my butt like so many other poor slobs.

TDD

The Daring Dufas wrote:

It happened something like a year ago and I'm now in the process
of helping him move to another location about a half mile away.
I have to get permits for the low voltage wiring today for the
computer network, phone system, cameras and door lock. We're
going to move two walk in coolers and one AC unit from the old
location so it's going to be a lot of fun just like all remodel
jobs. Damn I'm tired but I'm glad to be working and not sitting
on my butt like so many other poor slobs.

TDD

Indeed. I tend to think home improvements do well in a poor economy since
people want to stay put and stay home more. But this time around credit is
so tight that fewer people can find the money to do big jobs. It looks like
repairs that have to be done (like our collapsed sewer line) will be where
the work is, as opposed to people getting a loan to put in an enclosed hot
tub with deck just for laughs. Hang in there.

On Oct 15, 1:56*am, "DGDevin" wrote:
Mark wrote:
And you found someone that actually admits to knowing the
construction codes from 1942? *My guess is it is against the current
code, but probably wasn't against the old code. *Which, in most
cases, unless the area he is actually working on is involved, you
should not need to bring it up to current code unless there is a real
safety concern.

He's worked on lots of houses from that era and so had perhaps been told by
an inspector who knew a bit of history, something like that, I don't suppose
he'd actually looked it up. *That kind of pipe apparently wasn't supposed to
be used under the foundation presumably since it wouldn't have the lifespan
of iron and would be more likely to need replacement much earlier. *I'd
guess it wasn't used for sanitary drains at all. *Amazing it lasted this
long really. *I thought maybe it was a wartime thing to deal with iron
shortages but apparently it goes back to the late 1800s. *It hasn't been
used since the 1970s from what I could see. *In any case all that pipe had
to go because it had failed and not being able to do laundry just wasn't an
option. *I couldn't believe the tree roots in there, the pipe was just
packed with them.

I can. if you are dumping laundry grey water into the sewer and not
into a grey water holding tank, up until recently your detergents
probably had a lot of phosphates in them, which are like pork rinds
and chocolate to plants.

nate