Cat on a cold wet soil pipe

Today has once again been heavy rain for most of the day and despite my best efforts I have been unable to stem all of the leaks in our builder’s tarpaulin, so the kitchen is still littered with buckets and bowls in strategic places, to catch those annoying drips which cannot be prevented. Most of the kitchen is however reasonably dry.

Despite repeated requests to our builder not to drive heavy machinery over the soil pipe between the bathroom and our septic tank, this has been consistently ignored. Today our toilet blocked and a quick check proved that the soil pipe close to the septic tank had a blockage located in it. Much to my annoyance, as our builder is away on holiday for the rest of this week, I had to deal with the problem myself, with the assistance of Mrs GOG to fetch and carry. Fortunately I have two sets of drain rods, which reach the majority of our soil pipe, so disconnecting the pipe work, which Dougal is advertising in today’s blip, I attacked the problem with the drain rods and some large buckets of warm water containing disinfectant. Much to my amazement just as I attached the last drain rod to the assemblage, there was difficulty in pushing the drain rod further and a loud clunk, followed by the complete absence of resistance; the blockage had been cleared. I suspect that a piece of the top section of the earthenware pipe had been cracked off and had fallen across the pipe, to be moved along the pipe and out of the way by the rod. This is without doubt a temporary cure and several metres of the pipe will have to be dug out and inspected. It is worth noting that this is the first blockage we have experienced in this pipework in over thirty years; I was told that the previous owner had never experienced such a problem either. My builder appears to be creating more work than he is accomplishing!

During all of this exercise the rain was bucketing down so that Mrs GOG and myself, being only dressed in light clothing, because of the work involved, were absolutely soaked to the skin. Dougal, on the other hand having advertised the external waste plumbing, by his presence, had the sense to retire indoors with Florence.

No doubt this saga will continue!!!!