Two miserable weeks without plumbing

Just about two weeks ago, just after our neighbors (and landlord) left us to caretake for their farm while they traveled for Thanksgiving, our plumbing went down the tubes. The toilets stopped flushing, backup filled our bathtubs, and the sinks stopped draining.  


We tried plunging like crazy and dropped lots of liquid plumber down the drains but to no avail. We were convinced that the septic tank was so full that nothing else would go down.


What a nightmare!  But since our neighbors were out of town, we at least had access to functioning indoor plumbing.  We let them know the bad news and called to get the septic tank drained.


I called the septic service but they need to know where the cap is outside the house where they can access the tank.  So Dave and I searched everywhere around the house, not really knowing what we were looking for since neither of us knew about septic tank caps.  No luck.


Seann, our neighbor, came up to look around but couldn't find it either.  So we decided to start the search for the cap.  And then began our week long search to find the septic cap.


He brought up their tractor and we started to clear the rocks and soil in hopes we'd find it.  Three days in a row we cleared a radius of about ten yards from where the pipes headed but no luck.

So finally, the septic service guy brought up the backhoe, dug up the whole area, and finally they found it!  He sorta broke the concrete cap in the process but at least we finally knew where it was - nearly two weeks later.  

But then they discovered that although it was really full and needed to be emptied, that it wasn't full enough to be causing our backup problem.  Nope.  We had a plumbing problem.  


Dave and I borrowed a snake from a neighbor to try to clear out the pipes ourselves rather then bring  out a plumber.  Dave shoved the snake up the pipes over and over again but no luck.  Then, two weeks to the day this whole problem started, Dave and Seann together shoved the snake as hard as they could until the blockage came free.

Working the snake

They did it!


Dave immediately got to cleaning - he bleached every inch of both bathrooms.  And we were back in business.