Day 18 - Tuesday, April 5

 An overcast morning and about 60 degrees. It is supposed to go up to almost 70 today but it seems that the actual temperatures are about 10 degrees warmer than forecast for the afternoon.

First think this morning, I called John Padilla plumbing and arranged for someone to come out tomorrow afternoon to give an estimate on replacing the cast iron pipe and to also "scope" out the sewer lines to make sure we know where they go.

I took the car over to Pep Boys to get the brakes replaced. Very luckily, just before they called to say the car was finished, I received an e-mail from Pep Boys with a survey about my experience the day before and offering a 15% discount on a subsequent service. When I picked the car up, I was able to get $75 off which was a pleasant surprise.

Amy went to work at her office today and took Penny to daycare so it was pretty quiet at the house.

We dug a few more loads out of the crawlspace under Amy's bathroom and it was disconcerting to see that not only did they put in the wrong size drain pipe for the shower when the house was "flipped" (1 1/2" instead of 2"), they cut almost all the way through two of the floor joists. There should be enough room to work on plumbing changes now.

Then we went over to the other crawlspace entrance and when I went in, it looked like there was a lake about 6' long and 2' wide where the plumbers had made a trench to do the gas line work last year. I was able to channel it to the crawlspace entrance and put in a sump pump to catch the water. I lowered the water by about 6"! All this water can't be good for stability of the concrete piers supporting the floor. We dug a deeper pit for the sump pump and hope we will be able to drain off more water.

Carmen got a good workout using the push mower to cut Amy's grass. In just a week it had grown a lot and it took 3 passes to cut the grass. Just as Carmen finished, the wheel came off the mower - a project for tomorrow.

On the way back to Anna's, I stopped to talk to some guys who were doing a full foundation replacement at a house only about a block from Amy's. The worker said that it was awful trying to work with all the water in the ground and were waiting for it to go down a bit more.

Anna grilled "Impossible" burgers for dinner which we enjoyed on her patio.

Amy's "lake" in her crawlspace

Bad plumbing job


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