Adventures in Plumbing: Episode 3

Clogs must read Agatha Christie. 

Sometimes a clog can be a "Who done it" mystery, and if you know you're visitors, you probably already know who gone done it. It's not as complicated as "And Then There Were None." 

I wish our problem was a "Who done it." Those mysteries can be solved with a plunger. 

Some people, a hanger...

Instead, this most recent plumbing mystery had layers. There were subplots. Luckily, this most recent volume ended and the plot line was wrapped up. There's more to come, but for now, we can rest assured that the protagonist is at bay. 

The latest story started with a conversation between our two toilets. It was like one toilet was telling the other secrets, and the other toilet would giggle. After we showered, after we used the toilet in the main bathroom, after we did laundry, the toilet in the small bathroom would giggle gurgle. 

One of the subplots is that our small bathroom has venting issues. The blue toilet and the sink are connected. The sink is acting as a vent for the toilet. As my father-in-law said, the toilet was "suspect." 

The second clue of this latest mystery was the smell. One day, the green smell of sewer gas began to waft into the house. Luckily, it came and went, but no one should smell pooh in their house. Nobody. 

So, my father-in-law came back to help figure out what the problem was this time. Saturday was spent investigating, and by the end of the day, I had purchased a new toilet. 

The next day, we figured the new toilet would go on and, hopefully, we could figure out whatever the problem was. We tore the blue toilet out of the floor, shined a light down into the pipe, and we saw standing water. 

There was a clog in the main line, something my father-in-law could not tackle. 

It was time to call a plumber. 

We left the toilet off for the time-being, and the plumber came with the big guns: an electric auger. He shoved it through and shoved it down, and after 30 minutes, we had flowing water through our main line again. Tree roots and who know what else (and for who knows how long it was building up) had stopped up our pipe.

Now, there's a new toilet in the bathroom, but we ripped out the old sink. Our outside clean-out needs to be redone, and, lucky us, we'll probably need our main line redone, too, at some point. 

So, yes, the mystery's been solved, but this story is long from being over.