Would you send excess concrete down a drain pipe?!?!?!

[Jeff Sudmeier]

Warning this is a long post!!

This is on my ongoing saga of plumbing issues in my new condo. We purchased it in June of 2003. From that time until May of this year, we had the sewer back up 5 times!! Each time we had a plumber out and they were able to rod the sewer and get it working again. Each time, the contractor that built our house paid for the plumber, but got more and more irratated each time.

Finally in may, we had the sewer back up agian!! I asked that the contractor have out a plumber that I knew to rod it with a bigger machine... He agreed.

That night the plumber came out and rodded the sewer and caught ahold of something. He pulled it back. Imagine my suprise when I saw it was concrete!!! Now I had heard that there may be some in the pipes, but I didn't have proof. The contractors face was white. He admited that there was a problem with the pouring of the basement floor.

It turns out that he hired a new guy to pour the floor and he poured it WAY WAY too wet. He sent all of the excess water and cement down the floor drain which filled up the pipes in the basement and out to the street.

The contractor never paid the guy, but he had to jackhammer out the basement floor and pay to have all of the pipes replaced. HE DID NOTHING WITH THE PIPES OUTSIDE OF THE HOUSE!

So that night the plumber said he had to dig up the front yard. They dug up the front yard and replaced the pipes or cleaned the ones they could. When I got home, the hole was filled in. I asked the contractor if the pipes were clear from the foundation to the road and he said they were. He also signed a peice of paper saying the same...

[Jeff Sudmeier]

So fast forward to a few days ago.. Saturday to be exact. Our sewer backed up again!! The contractor was over at a neighbors house so I went over to talk to him about it.

His response: "Jeff, I can bend over and drop my pants if you would like". Needless to say that irratated me only slightly! I walked away and called up our family laywer. He promptly called the contractor back and stated that if he didn't want to be sued for $300K then he had better calm down.

The contractor came over to my house an hour later with a plumber. Ran the machine down the clean out, same deal, you can hear concrete.

Quote from contractor: "FWORD I knew we should have cleaned out the pipes to the road, I saw peices in there". At this point I was fuming!! He had already dug a huge hole in my front yard once this summer and saw that there was still a major problem and ignored it.

He said they would come on Monday and dig up the front yard again and fix it once and for all. I said I would not allow it and would only accept a company coming that I had worked with many times in the past. He stomped out of the house but called back and said to set it up.

The company was able to come out on Monday and dig a big hole and see that the pipes were still 1/2 full! They replaced all of the pipe that had crete in it all the way out into the road and added a T that you can see in this thread:
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=24655

[Von Bickley]

Jeff,
Hope that takes care of your problems. Backed-up sewer lines are no fun.
When you flush it, you don't ever want to see it again... :D

[Jeff Sudmeier]

So lessons learned:

A laywer can have a LOT of power.
Never trust a contractor that has done anything to betray your trust.
If you have the slight feeling that something isn't right, make sure it is. (I should have made the contractor pay for a camera to go down the pipe to the road after the first big dig!).

As it stands now, I have a place to dump my camper at home and I also have pipes clean from the road to my house. The plumbing company brought a camera and ran it from my house out to the road. They also drafted a document stating that the pipes were clean.

It has been a long process, but it is FINALLY resolved!!! Thank god!!!

I have had no out of pocket costs other than my time. The contractor has stood behind it, but only because he knew that he had to.

[Vaughn McMillan]

Jeff, your story sounds simlar to what happend to a co-worker of mine years ago. She and her husband bought a brand-new house, but had trouble with the upstairs toilet almost from the start. After many return visits from the contractor and his plumbers, they finally discovered a large chunk of 2x4 in one of the main drain lines between the floors. They had quite a bit of tearing out to do in order to handle the problem. How one ends up with a 2x4 in a drain line is beyond me. Sounds like a disgruntled employee. (Which reminds me...if disgruntled means upset, why don't they say an employee is "gruntled" when he's happy?)

Glad to see you got your problem fixed, and you got a dump station for your camper in the process, too. You should be very gruntled now. ;)

- Vaughn

[Roy Wall]

Unbelievable Saga.............

I can't imagine all this.......crazy:confused: :eek:

glad its good to go - now we have a great place to visit!!:cool: :D

[Jeff Sudmeier]

Roy, it is pretty unbelieveable isn't it!??! I already re-landscaped my yard once this year and will be doing it again soon!!

Buying your first house is supposed to be one of those great events in your life, not a nightmare! :)

[Scott Coffelt]

Well, I'd say his lack of detail and willingness to corretc the problem right the first time cost him more in the end. At least you were bale to get it fixed, too often the contractor is long gone.

[Steve Clardy]

Well, I'd say his lack of detail and willingness to corretc the problem right the first time cost him more in the end. At least you were bale to get it fixed, too often the contractor is long gone.

My thoughts exactly. If the contractor would have had it fixed right the first time----:rolleyes: it would have been cheaper for him.

[Charles McKinley]

Hi Jeff,

I'm glad that you have agood lawyer. Two winters ago the foundation of my house cracked and I have paid the lawyer $2500 over the last year and he seems to be draging his feet. It turns out the the entire lower half of my house (it is built into a hillside) is only 13 inches below grade!!!!! It is supposed to be 36-48". The owner/builder failed to disclose this.

As the old saying goes you don't own a house it owns you.

I hope that your plumbing issues are now resolved.

[Bill Lewis]

Jeff,

So the camper drain dump ended up costing you $0? So what are you going to spend the $2k-$3k on now?

It's a good thing your contractor wished to stay in business, and maintain his reputation. Around here if you sue a contractor they don't care. Their attitude is if they do get a judgement against them, good luck collecting it.

[John Hart]

...
Buying your first house is supposed to be one of those great events in your life, not a nightmare! :)

Well...like Rosanne Rosanna Danna used to always say.."It's always somethin'.." Nice to know that it only consumed your time Jeff. My house problems always seem to cost me more.:(

[Jeff Sudmeier]

:) I don't have 2-3K if I did, I would probably own that big bandsaw that is sitting in my shop!! ;)

The contractor definately lost out on this one. With my conservative calculations, he has spent about 20% of what I paid for the place on the multiple fixes, emergency plumbing, etc :)

The first thing I checked is that the contractor had insurance, before I even put in an offer on the place. Turns out his insurance agent is mine as well. The agent isn't covering his claims, but he does have a policy to cover anybody that sues so if he wouldn't have taken care of it, I may have had a chance at some money.

Anyway, just glad it is fixed! Now I have to re-work on my yard, AGAIN!

[Kent Parker]

Wow Jeff! What a pain in the a...So, the rest of the cement is now in the city main waiting to back up? My town would be furious if they knew this guy dumped cement down the sewers. Probably be difficult for him to get any future permits!

Glad to hear you got new pipe out of the contractor finally.

Cheers,
KP

[Jeff Sudmeier]

Wow Jeff! What a pain in the a...So, the rest of the cement is now in the city main waiting to back up? My town would be furious if they knew this guy dumped cement down the sewers. Probably be difficult for him to get any future permits!

Glad to hear you got new pipe out of the contractor finally.

Cheers,
KP

Kent, you are correct, when we ran the camera down through the pipes, we saw peices of crete in the main. The main is a 12 inch main, but there is a sewer pump less than a block away. One of the two pumps was already damaged by a peice of concrete so they are very woried about this crete in the pipes. It sounds like they will be running a camera down all of the mains from my house to the pump at additional cost to the contractor!!

[Charles McKinley]

Jeff

Make sure that they put a one way valve on the line from your house the the main. If something backs up the main line this prevents everyone elses' sewage from ending up in your basement. This has happened to a friend of mine and it wasn't pretty.

[Michael Perata]

Jeff

Make sure that they put a one way valve on the line from your house the the main. If something backs up the main line this prevents everyone elses' sewage from ending up in your basement. This has happened to a friend of mine and it wasn't pretty.
Charles
You only need a backup preventer if your house is lower than the top of the closest man hole cover.

[Jeff Sudmeier]

Charles
You only need a backup preventer if your house is lower than the top of the closest man hole cover.

AND MINE IS!! :) I am not as concerned about back ups from the city as I was my own line. The hole is already closed up, so I won't be adding one, but It would have been a great thing to add!

Darn it... aww well, hopefully I won't be living here much longer anyway.