Tuesday - December 31, 2019

2nd best New Year’s Eve Evar !!

Household Disaster, Narrowly Avoided

Late this afternoon half the kitchen floor peeled up spontaneously, and we suddenly had water everywhere. WTF?? The way our kitchen is built in this condo ... we’re on the lower level so our floors are poured concrete; the water lines and the drain line run right across the kitchen floor from the sink, to the washer and dryer that’s in a closet on the other side of the room, to the main drain that runs under the hallway on the other side of the wall behind them. We’d had a problem a year or so ago with some water coming up through the adhesive vinyl floor tiles that were there when we bought this place 7 years ago. That issue was caused by a grease clog in the main drain, that caused the vertical washer drain tube in the wall to not drain, and the excess water to run down the overflow hole in the faucet divot in the wall behind the washer. That water ran down between the studs in the wall, and out underneath, but behind the baseboard, and then under the flooring under the washer, and from there out across the middle of the kitchen floor. So it was a big expensive bitch to fix, and to get a plumber in with the clog buster machine to clean all the lines out, even the main drain out 50 feet past the outside wall of our unit. So oh no, it’s clogged up again?? But no!

This time it was a problem under the sink. Same path under the tiles, but from the other end. The sink has a garbage grinder on it, which we almost never use. All our food bits and pan grease go in the trash, not down the drain. But it’s an OEM grinder, from when the place was built in 1978. And the inner seals finally wore out. I’d kind of wondered if we were having another water problem a couple days ago when I noticed a couple of the kitchen floor tiles seemed a bit buckled up. But ever since the water got in last time, their adhesive is now weak, and they tend to lift up a bit when we have high humidity. And it’s been raining here like life in England for the past few days, so I didn’t think much of it. But what we had at that point was a slow leak in the garbage grinder, a steady drip going on for a bunch of days - come on, how often do you go underneath the kitchen sink and nose around? It’s the Twilight Zone under there. And the water was dripping down onto the base, flowing backwards to the wall behind the sink, and going down and getting under the floor tiles from that side. So it looked like the same problem as before, since low point in the concrete slab is the line between the sink and the washer where the builders laid the pipes in a trough and then poured it full with concrete. And this afternoon we did a few loads in the dishwasher and the sink, getting the place all nice and clean for 2020. And then the tiles erupted.

So lots of mopping, lots of buckets. Running around checking all the faucets and valves and stuff. I had to remove the garbage grinder from it’s Rube Goldberg maze of P-trap drain bits, and disconnect the wire. At least there’s a switch, so I wasn’t lying in water playing with live electricity. Well, duh, Drew did something smart for once. Once! So right now we have no drain attached to the kitchen sink, and it looks like the kitchen renovation project we’ve been talking about for the last few years will become a sudden top priority. Crap.

After having a plate of nice holiday nibbles for lunch, and a little scotch comparison for fun, before the mishap, we were in the middle of making a nice pot of sauce for spaghetti when this happened. I cleaned up and mopped up, but we still have everything from under the sink all over the kitchen floor. Amazing how much crap gets pigeon holed under there. So when it was time to serve the pasta, I took the pot and the strainer up to the bathroom sink and drained it there. It worked. I didn’t get scalded, didn’t spill a drop, and now the bathroom sink drain has been sanitized, Italian style.

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Why was this only the 2nd worst best NYE ever for me? I spent the eve of the millennium in the hospital trying to pass a kidney stone. Only one I’ve ever had, and that was 20 years ago. But OMG did that hurt. OTOH, the nurse gave me two shots of ... I think it was called Dilaudid ... some heavy duty opiate, laudanum based pain killer. Maybe it was something else, but it was a hammer blow, mainlined right into me. I was holding onto the exam table to keep from floating away. Holy cats, I haven’t been that high since college. I had to pee through a paint filter funnel cone for a week after that to make sure I caught any more stones if they passed. There weren’t any, but they only gave me the one paper cone filter. Needless to say, after a week of use, it wasn’t very appealing.

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And a Happy New Year for everyone, and may your 2020 start out with less panic and stress than mine has.

Posted by Drew458     on 12/31/2019 at 11:17 PM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
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