Sewage

Last night I decided to go downstairs to admire our newly installed furnace/central heating and was met with the extremely unwelcome sight of water cascading down from various pipes and pooling in the basement. I'm no plumber, but I know that the liquids are supposed to stay *inside* the pipes. A quick call to Star Rooter (highly recommended) and a few hours of futile snaking later, the guy told us that the 1930's era terra cotta pipes were broken and infiltrated with roots so badly that almost nothing was getting through. He showed us what it looked like with his plumbing endoscope and it looked like a jungle down there. Every pipe section was broken with root systems spider webbed through it. Things were not looking good. The good news was that he could come back the next day (today) and replace the pipe using a fancy newish system (trenchless). So, as promised, Luis showed up this morning and dug two holes -- one near the city clean out access and one near the house. The process is actually pretty interesting: you snake a braided cable through the busted pipe, then attach it to a phallic metal breaking head, which is then fitted on the new pipe. The cable then is attached to a special pulling device, which pulls the whole thing through the old pipes, breaking them and simultaneously positioning the new pipe. We're talking sexy stuff here. Seriously, it worked like a charm and they were done by 1 pm. It would have taken waaaaay longer if they had to dig a new trench and demolish all of that concrete (and then re-pour it).

Here is the end where the uh "head" gets attached. That mighty rod behind it is the new root resistant pipe.

Here is Luis attempting to snake the old sewer line having just bashed the iron pipe with that sledghammer on the left. A sick smelling and large volume of "water" rushed out of the hole upon impact.

Sexy!



It all went pretty well, and we are able to flush our toilets again. We weren't happy about having to do this right at this minute, considering the several House Repair Unit price (One House Repair Unit is $1000, as I've learned) and the fact that we just had the electrical upgraded as well as put in some new windows, etc etc, but I'm glad that this is out of the way. The root infiltration was in the disclosures, so I knew it would rear its head at some point.

Charles Chocolates Tour

Charles Chocolates, our local artisan chocolatier, has a bricks and mortar (literally!) store and factory in emeryville off of I80. Actually, what part of emeryville isn't near I80? Anyway, we saw on the web site that they offer tours, and being big fans of their caramels and hazelnut confections, we reserved three spaces. The tour itself turned out to be just like the Gene Wilder
psychadelic Charlie and the Chocolate Factory experience we were hoping for, except replace oompa loompas with masked technicians unboxing and hitting large slabs of chocolate with hammers, and replace Gene Wilder with an apathetic "I've done this two hundred times, so don't ask me any goddam questions" former record store clerk. Think Ben Stein, rather than Gene. Oh yeah, and replace the part about actually getting to see tour the factory with sitting around in the glass walled atrium.


It's not all bad though -- you get free chocolate!