You buy a charming, mid-20th century house in a well-established neighborhood. You enjoy the solid construction, the wood floors, the basement, and the tree-lined street on which it is situated.
What no one mentions to you is that those lovely trees have roots that will strangle your mainline approximately every 18 months, usually resulting in a spectacular fountain of recently discarded water in your basement. If you are lucky, this occurs when you are doing laundry. If you are really lucky, it occurs while you are having a party. In your basement.
Anyway.
The first time this happened (about 2 months after moving in), we, being the noob homeowners that we were, called in the cavalry, a company whose name rhymes with "moto-scooter". This was expensive, and created a gigantic mess in our basement, because at the time we didn't know we had a cleanout buried in the flower bed in the front yard.
I since found the cleanout while doing some gardening earlier this year, so when the tree struck again this weekend, I was emboldened to try taking care of this myself. Not to denigrate the services of the gentleman from the previously mentioned company, but it seemed to me that we were mostly paying for the tool he had, rather than any particular expertise.
I was delighted to learn that you can rent this baby from Home Depot for $42 for four hours. ($60 for 24, if you feel like helping out your neighbors when you're done. You won't.)
And you know what? It works. Really, really well.
That said, I understand why the pros charge so much. If that was my full-time job, you'd have to give me a hell of a lot of money...
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2 comments:
Just keep an eye on it for the time when the rooter doesn't work any more. Then, look to dig out the drainage pipe from the lawn and replacing it with a new one because the roots tore up the old one too much.
I am doing everything I can to make sure that is the next owner's problem. LOTS of CuSO4 down the mainline, often...
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