Our Recent “Low”

So in my last weekly post, I referred to a “low” and all has been resolved with this so I can talk about it now. You know, owning a house is great until you have a major issue occur.

Last year we had some drainage issues and we had a roto rooter type company come out and they ended up finding a broken line that goes out to the sewer. Some how they were able to clear it enough where our plumber told us, its good for now. You might be able to have it cleared a time or two more when the backup issues happen again.

So a couple weeks ago we noticed sewage in our front yard again and water coming out into our utility room when washing clothes and running the dishwasher again. We had the roto rooter people come back out, but no such luck this time. The sewer line on our property that is busted couldn’t be cleared anymore. Time to replace it.

One thing I didn’t mention already is that one major reason we put off replacing this last year was because the line is broken under our drive way. Concrete is expensive!

First things first, we had the plumbers come out and started digging, and realized that more than just the sewer line needed to be replaced! The pipe to our house was barely holding on, so that got replaced as well. It was very brittle due to huge root systems. So not only did they have to tear up our driveway, they ended up having to cut up part of our sidewalk leading to the front of the house.

Here it is after they ‘put everything back.’

We use our front door daily, so I was glad they were able to puzzle piece that front stoop area back together, so I didn’t have to step into red dirt/mud. We’d also be parking on the street so it was even more important at this point.

Rob had asked for recommendations for someone to redo our driveway. We had the guy come out and gave us a quote and he could start the next day! He said he was in between 2 huge jobs, so it was either now or a few weeks from now. We were tired of parking in front of the house and tired of looking at it like this. They started the next day!

They had quite a time getting the driveway up near the house because someone had concreted over the old driveway, so there were 2 layers for them to get up. Also we have a brick flower bed they were trying not to tear up which made things more interesting.

It took them a full day to clear the old driveway and prep it for the new one.

About to start pouring the driveway.

So here it is. The concrete was poured and finished on Thursday. We weren’t able to drive on it till yesterday, so we blocked the driveway with our trashcans until then.

We had our driveway expanded so the entrance is wide enough now that the car on the side away from our house can leave if two cars are parked behind one another on the other side, if that makes sense. That will be really nice! Pothole repair best practices by an expert made it possible to ensure that everything in the driveway was fixed.

This was a huge expense that we weren’t prepared for, but luckily we were able to get a personal loan with the tips from kreditfinanzcheck.de to pay for both the plumbing work and the new driveway. Our next task is work on the yard and see if it needs to be resodded. It’s also very uneven.

Ugh! Sometimes adulting really stinks!