Sh** Happens – Twice!

We have had ‘drain problems’ again.

After the local plumber ‘did his magic’ with his rods and various foul smelling chemicals, life got back to normal for a while…

But then, about a month ago, I was in the shower whilst our washing machine was on. The washing machine emptied… and my feet were suddenly engulfed in soap suds! Obviously the ‘drains fix’ had not been a permanent one.

Well, we could have called the plumber back, but were loath to do so. He had not been cheap and he had not completely fixed the problem. Haggling in Spanish to try to get him to come back and fix it for free was not something we felt would achieve a satisfactory outcome.

When we had had potential problems with our Saluki and had spoken to the ‘translator man’, my husband had also mentioned our ‘drains problem’ and the man said he would help if necessary. So my husband rang him again and the guy rang the local council for us and got us a visit from the sanitations department (or whatever they are called).

But, as these things happen, by the time the sanitations man arrived, the problem had gone away again. The engineer decided that this looked like an outside drains problem rather than one inside our house. We breathed a sigh of relief as this would entail no more cost for us. So, the man and his team had a look down the street drain… and declared ‘no problema’.

Hmmm, what to do now? We just crossed our fingers and hoped ‘el problema’ would not return. Of course it did.

A few days later, the weather turned bad. Torrential rain and high winds buffetted our village. Because of a strange planning arrangement when our house was built, we collect rain water from surrounding houses. It passes along their gutters into a pipe which meets up with our house drains.

In the early hours of the morning, I was doing my night time shift on the computer, when I heard the dreaded bubbling and gurgling noises again. I look in the bathroom with trepidation… and found our bath filled with rain water.

The rain eventually stopped and the water slowly drained away, but we were left with a very blocked drainage system. Time to call out the council engineers again. The next morning, my husband drove down to the local council and asked for their help.

An hour or so later, two engineers arrived, armed with rods and hoses…and a pneumatic drill. One of them proceeded to drill a large hole outside our front door. My husband tried to tell him that it was very unlikely the drains came out there, as the outgoing pipe under our house was about 10 metres to the left of this spot, but the engineer declared that “esta aqui” because that was the spot under the water meter. He carried on drilling.

Pieces of concrete and earth flew everywhere as the guy got into his stride. Our whole house shook and, I guess, so did all the other houses in the street. However, when he was stood almost shoulder deep in the now very wide hole, the engineer admitted defeated. The drain “no esta aqui”. My husband gently pointed to the spot 10 metres away for the second time and the engineer shrugged and said “vale” and moved his drill to the required spot.

About two seconds later, he found the drains access. it was a couple of inches below the road surface. Now the two engineers could begin inspecting and working on the drain with their rods and hose.

To cut a long (and very messy) story short, they managed to fix ‘el problema’. It was internal to our house, but they fixed it for us at no cost. After clearing the drain completely (the previous plumber had just ‘made a hole’ in the blockage), they showed us what had caused the problem in the first place.

When our house was renovated, we had assumed that new pipework would be installed throughout. There had been nothing much wrong with the original pipe running under our living room floor, but it was old and a different circumference to new pipes, so joining the pipes from the new extension would have presented a problem.

However, it appears that ‘new pipework throughout’ had not been the rule when the project was under way. The old pipe had been left and the new drainage pipe from the extension had been joined to it, by placing the smaller (new) pipe some way inside the older one. This had left a ridge where the new pipework ended and this ridge had, over the months, caught stray pieces of toilet paper. These had become wedged, making a larger ridge for more to catch on. You get my drift…

The engineer told us it was “muy mal” that our builders had installed pipes this way. He said we were going to be faced with the same problem again in a few months time, unless we had the old pipe replaced.

To do this would mean digging up our living room floor, not to mention the cost of more building work.

I wonder if you still read this blog Mr Project Manager? If you do, then perhaps you would like to come and install the new pipe work for free? It must have been your decision to install the drainage system like this in the first place. There again, perhaps not, we could well do without further stress.

We still have a very large hole outside our front door. The engineers said they, or someone else, would be back ‘mañana’ to fill it in and lay new concrete. We have learned, however, that ‘mañana’ does not necessarily mean ‘the next day’ so we’ll wait and if no one turns up in another week or so my husband will go to the council and ask them to call again.

In the meantime, he has filled in the hole as best he can and covered the earth with some left over tiles. The neighbours are not particularly impressed as this does tend to ruin the look of the street a little. I guess that council visit should be made sooner rather than later…

But we are not complaining about the engineers’ work. They did it all for free and unblocking internal drains was not their job. We are just so glad they were willing to help.

Of course, at some time soon we will have to think about getting replacement pipes fitted in our house. This is more expense we hadn’t envisaged and certainly cannot afford right now.

Did you hear me say “no me lo puedo creer”? No, I’m afraid not. Having had so many problems with the renovation work before, I can believe that this particular problema has happened only too well…

Sh** Happens…

In true ‘no me lo puedo creer’ style, we have had another ‘little emergency’ which could have turned into a catastrophe if not for the help of a spanish plumber!

A few days ago I noticed strange ‘gurgling sounds’ emerging as the shower drained. Having heard these sounds before, when the plumbing in our RV backed up, I feared the worse. But my husband came to the rescue with the spanish version of ‘Mr Muscle’, liberally poured down the drain, and all seemed fine … for a day anyway.

The next day, however, the ‘gurgling’ was louder. The sinks were draining very slowly, but at least the toilet was flushing ok … that is until we realised that the drained water from the loo was backing up into the bath! We needed plumbing help, and quick!

Now, when this house was renovated, plans were supposed to have been drawn up. They were certainly approved on inspection, so we assumed anyway that they were in existence. As we had no idea where our trap (or rodding point for the drains) was, we needed those plans, so that we could tell a plumber where to put his rods, so to speak! There had been a trap before the house was renovated, but it appears that this has been covered up… and no other point installed. A bit of a problem when it comes to getting at the drains!

Since the work has never been officially completed on our house, we do not have the plans; they should still be in the hands of our project manager. Therefore, despite already guessing what kind of response we would get, my husband sent him a text.

As suspected, his response was not helpful. Just a suggestion that we would have to take out the toilet and call a plumber … oh yes, and he likes this blog! Well, thank you Mr Project Manager, I’m glad you like my little blog. It’s a shame, this being a blog about the ‘trials and tribulations’ of moving to Spain, that so many of the entries are related to you in some way. I would much rather write about something else!

Anyway, my husband’s second thought was to contact the guys who worked on the house. Some of them had remained in touch, and they should know the plumbing system. After all, they had installed it. But no reply, despite phone calls and texts requesting them to call us back urgently. Now, they could be away and unable to respond … makes me wonder though ….

My husband then called an English plumber who had worked on our house before (to help get it finished when the original builders left…), but he was unavailable until Monday. With overflowing sinks and a loo that worked … but not in a good way, we needed help sooner than that.

As luck would have it, the local ferreteria gave us a card for a plumber who lives in a nearby village. He was only too willing to come out right then. But by this time it was getting late, and we guessed that there would be little he could do that evening.

A few minutes later the guy arrived, complete with all kinds of dastardly things to put down the pipes to attack the blockage (he had already been told that there was no easy access point for rods). Added to the fact that we needed boiling water to flush the stuff away, our kitchen took on the image of ‘hell’s kitchen’, with bubbling cauldrons and the pungent aroma of sulpher. But nothing worked… except that we now had an acrid bubbling mixture arising out of the plughole in the bath. The toilet had to come out! But not that night.

So we got by, aided by frequent visits to the neighbours to use their loo and washing facilities… and the washing up bowl in the kitchen was filled with used plates and greasy water and no where to drain it. So any more cooking was out of the question too. We just hoped the guy could work his magic in the morning!

True to his promise, the plumber turned up bright and early, with his teenage daughter in tow (she is learning the business – a lucrative one too it seems …). Taking out the loo was a bit of a problem for him . The builders had not bolted the loo to the floor – they had stuck it hard with sealant (I guess they hadn’t realised what the bolt holes were for…. ). But he struggled gainly and sweated profusely and at last the loo came out, and, surprise, surprise, he was so good he managed to get the loo out without breaking it or ruining any of the tiles it was stuck to. I’m not sure many others would have managed that …

With lots of use of rods and water and goodness knows what else plumbers use (I kept out of the way at that point) and a constant supply of Cokes for his thirst, the guy fixed the problem. We can now shower again and flush the loo without warily looking at the bath…. It’s surprising how much these ‘little things’ matter.

He wasn’t cheap, and he may have overcharged us. Although, from the hard work he put in and the speed he carried it out, including clearing up after his work so well that the bathroom was almost spotless, we considered it a fair deal.

The moral of this story, well, see the title… and use a Spanish workman to put things right when it does!