Thanksgiving went fantastic as far as the dinner goes. Didn't eat to much but sure had plenty to eat. At least I was not uncomfortable after dinner. All the food was fantastic. My wife and her sisters all fixed up some great eats so there was so so much food. Hard for me not to overfill my plate but I did better this year than most.
All the sisters and young adults helped clean up after dinner. We have a garbage disposal but since we have a septic we do not put much of anything down it. Solids go in the trash. Grease goes in the trash etc etc. But they did not know this. So more was put down the disposal than we normally would. So an hour or two after dinner I am playing a group game in our basement with the guys and we hear water, look over and it's dripping from the ceiling under the upstair bathroom.
![Eek! :eek: :eek:](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
Then I hear a voice yell that a toilet has overflowed. Crap. Go upstairs to see what's up and sure nuff water is all over the floor, and coming out of the toilet. Damn. Wife has the wet dry vac already and is sucking up the water. Kids brought towels to mop up what the wet dry vac would not get. Get the mess cleaned up and I attempt to plunge the toilet to no avail. I've never seen one plugged like this one. I thought for sure the young kids had put a toy or something down the pipe. Was upset but the mess was cleaned up, so we closed off that bathroom and moved on. Back to the game and socializing. Wife puts the towels she used to clean up in the washer, and starts up the dishwasher to get the turkey day dishes clean. All is good. Or so we thought.
A half hour later water again starts dripping from the ceiling (thank goodness my basement ceiling is unfinished). And someone yells the toilet is overflowing AGAIN. Who in the heck used it. Geesh. This is not good. Get up there and wife already has the wet dry vac going again. She says this is hot water coming out, and there is little pieces of food in it. YUCK. Hot water????
![Confused :confused: :confused:](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
What the heck is going on?
Turns out no one had used the toilet, nor had kids put toys or anything else down it. We had a major plug in our main line. Since the ceiling is unfinished in the basement we could feel the pipe and tell where the hot water was getting to, just past the junction where the number one toilet ties in. Water from the washer and dishwasher were hitting that blockage and going the route of least resistance to the toilet and forcing water up and out of the toilet. Arrrgggggg. Cleaned up the mess. No using the washer, dishwasher, kitchen sink or number one bathroom until the plug was cleared. Thank goodness we have a bathroom off the master bedroom and a recently added bathroom in the basement that were past the blockage so we had two working toilets and facilities. Whew. Since we had 11 adult and 5 kids all staying overnight two full bathrooms handled things with no major problem.
Friday I did not want to mess with the blockage so I called our local plumber. Since I had an icemaker issue that needed some copper pipe sweat in to fix where a saddle valve was a plumber seemed like a good option. No answer. I left a message. Waited for an hour, called back only to get the machine. Damn. Called the rental place and they had 50 and 75 ft roto rooter snakes. At least I did have a clean out at the end near where the washer ties into the pipe, but it was 40 or 50ft from the blockage. So I went for the 75ft unit. Got the clean out open and rammed the snake in, all the way to the blockage. Boy was it solid. Jammed and jammed but could not get through it. Thank goodness for the motor driven roto rooter. Turned it on and still had to jam a few times but that it caught and pulled itself through the blockage. We ran the snake out all the way to 75 ft. pulled it back out and closed up the pipe. Had everyone flush all the toilets 5 or more times to wash the gunk from the blockage all the way to the septic so it did not give me other issues somewhere else in the pipe. All worked like a charm. Dishwasher and washer could now run. No issues, at least not with the drain pipes.
Fan on in the bathroom to dry it up. Hallway carpet and wife's walk in closet carpet on the other side of the bathroom wall both seeped up water. Now we have a mold/mildew smell (wife smells it I don't) ...so while I thought we could get by without an insurance claim if we have mold & mildew, I want to get that cleared out and that could be expensive. Still looking at options on that.
....so Thanksgiving dinner was GREAT. the aftermath left a bit to be desired. LOL