Day 114...cont...
Nothing like having the big gear on daily rental and standing around scratching your head wondering what to do.
Back inside, given up on the outside route.
Cleared the bathroom. Took 30 seconds to move my toothbrush and shaver out of the way. Took 50 minutes to move some of the girls bathroom "stuff" to the left a touch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBImg8LdQc4
Carrying the big motor and clutch into the bathroom, then the rods and cutter heads was one chore I did while Dad gingerly chipped away at the rock hard 60 year old cement securing the toilet to the base.
Now, this is a rather delicate operation. The four screws holding the "pedestal" to the concrete was easy enough, only took about 15 minutes to scrap away the concrete to expose the screw head. Got three out and had to drill the remaining one out. Too easy, our tail is up.
Now for the delicate / rough operation of trying to extract the base of the pedestal from the vertical pipe. Slowly chip away with a cold chisel and engineering hammer for about 30 minutes. My rig experience is quickly telling me that this is a joke. Dad has the patience for this, I don't.
I give him a hand by drilling holes every 5mm around the base, alternating sides while he tap taps away. This stuff is as hard as nails and not going anywhere. Concrete dust and sweat are mixing together, whilst we grapple each other surrounded by a toilet bowl in a confined space. So much for the joys of being retired !!
That's it, I've cracked the *****. Flick the little engineering hammer away and get a serious knockometer onto the job. Ask Dad to stand back. Hook into the base with a proper blow and ping, there goes the fragile as hell brittle ceramic toilet. That won't ever see service again.
Just what Dad was trying to avoid. Too late for that.
With a couple more blows, whilst putting a hand down the poo pipe to ensure the ceramic pieces flying off the toilet don't end up going down the tube as well and having to fish those out later on.
Remove the toilet.
Ahhhh....now, for the very first time, we are about to see "the problem". Shine a bright torch down there. Nothing. The pipe drops down about 1.2m and then does a hard 90 degree turn right. You're kiddin' me.
The only section of the entire plumbing maze I still can't get to, and sure enough, that is where the unseen problem is.....directly inside the foundation stone and inaccessible.
OK, time to get rough.
Crank up the snake and put the most aggressive cutting head on. Send her down Jimmy. When the clutch is engaged, the rod whips around the bathroom wall making a hell of a racket, scouring the walls and skirting board. Can't help cosmetic damage, we're after the bigger structural fish now.
Send it round the 90 degree corner. Clutch stalls, snake whips, the cutters have hit the obstruction. Work it. Work it. Rotating, reciprocating, sending water down. This is just like a drilling / reaming job out on the rigs. I'm in my element.
Not happy with the clutch stalling and refusal of the snake to handle the torsional stress. Pull out of hole. Observe very fine reddish brown roots on cutter teeth.
Change the cutter head for something more gentle. Bit slimmer and pointier. Run in hole.
Crank up the reaming operation again, working the pipe up and down, plenty of rotation and plenty of fluids. 3 man operation. 1 spotter out in the driveway looking for cuttings flowing by. They see them flowing.
Breakthrough !!
The slim cutter head is through and doing it's job, whipping up a frenzy around the corner where no-one can observe exactly what is going on. Happy with progress. Work it for another 20 minutes before pulling out of hole.
Quickly change cutting heads, getting adept with the lock on/off mechanism that holds the head onto the rod. Send in the big aggressive cutter head. This time she sails through, carving it's way through the mass of roots. Once again, spend another 20 minutes working it through, making sure the obstruction is finally gone.
Pull out of hole and stare at our handiwork.
Can't test the flush mechanism anymore. Toilet smashed to pieces and all we're staring at is a long drop crowned in hardened concrete like my days back in Yemen.
Skulldrag all of the heavy kit back outside and flush it all through, before packing it back into the car ready to return tomorrow.
Spend an hour packing up every other conceivable tool and trying our best to clean the bathroom and hallway. It was a "man effort" at best with the cleaning. Hey - structural stuff outranks cleaning duties every time.
So, that's it. Dad turns around and says, "well, now that the toilet is smashed, you won't be able to get another new toilet on that concrete mound, especially with the remnant pieces of ceramic still buried and surrounded by concrete."
What's my options ??
"Well, you're gonna have to grind off all of that concrete, and then to bypass that problem section, I'd suggest drilling a hole through the wall and foundation stone, run some new PVC pipe externally so you can get to it and then plug into the old earthenware pipes at the inspection port down there."
So cleaning out the blocked section wasn't needed after all ??
"Not after you smashed the toilet off."
Joy !!
In hindsight, (isn't it great), if I had of known 114 days ago what I knew now, I would have simply turned the water off, picked up a sledgehammer and smashed the toilet clean off.
Then called a plumber and get him to hook up new lines outside, connected to a new toilet.
Still would of had to cut through the driveway....but all that digging trying to troubleshoot and eliminate the things that weren't blocked....until you narrowed down the possibilities.
Murphy's Law should have told me it was always going to be the section that was the most difficult to access.
Anyway, another couple of hundred in supply costs, and quite a few more hundred in plumbing costs and a few more hundred in hiring costs should see us back with a working toilet.
This is by no means over yet.
I can hardly remember waaaay back when the wife first said "The water's not going down properly, can you please take a look at it ??
....and onwards we trudge....
