The Veritable Plumber

Not for the weak of stomach, I suppose. Of course I would usually put myself in that category.

The problem was as follows (as my dad would say). Our basement is dirt ground with wooden planks in a few places to walk on. This is pretty common up here in the deep north.  While I was drilling holes in the basement for Ayumi to run electrical wires through, we heard a little drip drip drip. After a little searching, I found that one of our ancient cast iron drainage pipes was leaking. Not only that, but it looked like it had been dripping for about 10 years. The previous owner was an old (very nice) lady and her sons live around here. It looked like her sons had tried to fix the leak by tying a hankerchief around the pipe and cramming it into the seam. However, it had been so long that the 'kerchief was starting to decay and it had been dripping long enough now that there was a stalactite of funkiness hanging off of it and a small puddle had formed below. It had gradually dampened a whole corner of dirt (sorry I forgot to take a picture of the hankerchief job). Quickly I grabbed the flashlight and worked out what feeds into that particular drainage pipe.* Thank the sun, moon, and stars it wasn't the toilet; it was the kitchen sink and the washing machine.

I proceeded to scrape the remaining 'kerchief scraps off the pipe and out of the pipe seam. It turns out that might not have been the best time to do that because I didn't really have a solution on hand and the next time the kitchen sink got used, soapy water came pouring out. Whoopsie-daisy. 

The offending pipe. The offensive kerchief is on the ground.

That's a spider web stalactite, but not the stalactite of funkiness.

The pipe once I had scraped out the kerchief.

 Off to the store I went to pick up some hydraulic cement: a bad-ass name for a bad-ass product. It was $6 and you go 3 parts powder for 1 part water and it hardens within 3-5 minutes. After mixing, I applied it with some latex gloves and molded the hydraulic cement around the seam. We waited an hour to be safe and then ran the sink and it was all good.

Hydraulic cement. I'm telling you, it's boss. I'm already looking for more excuses to use it. Never have I had such power oozing between my fingers.   

When I'm doing really undesirable work Ayumi is always super nice and complimentary. I guess she thinks that will get me to do those yucky jobs more in the future. "Wow, Dan, you're a veritable plumber. I'm sooo impressed." I'm sure next time it's going to be, "Oh, you look sooo handsome with that plunger in your hands."

*- One really nice thing about a totally unfinished basement is that it is really easy to figure out what runs where for plumbing and, to a slightly lesser degree, electrical wiring.

The Veritable Plumber