Growing Daltons: Oh No, it's the PLUMBING.

I put a notice up last week saying that we were having plumbing problems. It turned out not to be a problem, but a NEAR MISS WITH DISASTER.

Last Wednesday morning I was preparing to walk out the door with Evie and Isaac when I noticed some white plaster on the floor. Huh?
I looked up and was shocked: the plaster in the section of the ceiling underneath our second-floor bathroom had swollen due to water leaking, looking like a very crusty cow udder. Oh No!
The emergency plumber came, punched a hole in my ceiling, looked around and gave me the very very bad news: You don't have just a leak, you have a calamity. OH NO.
Your entire pipe system connecting your bathroom pipes to your soil stack needs to get replaced.
And yes, it will cost a lot of money.
And no, you can't use your bathroom in the meantime.
And we can't fix it until Friday.
OH. *%#@. NO.

This is what we had: our house was built around the 1920s, and the pipework we have is original to the house. This means our 4-inch cast-iron pipes should have been replaced at least 15 years ago. Our leak was coming from the pipe with turnbuckles on it--what looks like rusty fungus on that main pipe. A cast-iron pipe should not leak, nor should it look moldy. In order to access the pipework to replace it, they would need to make a huge hole in the ceiling, open a hole in a second floor closet that had access panels to the tub, and they would likely have to break up my bathroom floor. Dear God in Heaven, have mercy on us.

And no, they wouldn't be able to start until Friday. That meant we had two days without being able to access our bathroom. So, we had some fun with it. We were thankful that we had a toilet in the basement; it was a very long trip if we had to go in the middle of the night, though. For the kids, Isaac got baths in the kitchen sink and Evie got what we called a "camping bath". We stood her on a towel in the kitchen and wiped her down with a soapy washcloth and then rinsed her with a wet washcloth. She loved it.

Tim and I were just dirty. Oh well.
It made me appreciate the American luxury of having a bathroom in the first place. There are many families all over the world who only have a single water source in their house to serve all their family needs. Tim reminded me that there are many families in Africa who have to walk miles just to access water and bring it back for their families. So baths in the kitchen sink, or standing on a towel, or no baths at all are very normal for many communities in our global community. We are so stinking lucky to have what we have, and we don't even know it.

When Friday morning rolled around, I had three plumbers knock on our door at 8:30 a.m. They set to work, I stayed out of their way. By 10:30 a.m., I walked out of Isaac's room after putting him down for a nap (I know! He was able to sleep through that crazy noise! It's the magic of the blanket!). When I came out of his room, this is what I saw: my toilet was in my tub. Yes, they had lifted my toilet out of bathroom floor and had put it in my tub. Wow. Not a sight you ever expect to see.

The final diagnosis: Our pipes were so old, they were rotting from the inside out. When the plumber showed me the pipes they had removed, they were crumbling in his hand when he picked them up. It is a COMPLETE MIRACLE OF GOD that the entire pipe system did not fall down on our heads before now. Additionally, the wall underneath this particular part of the ceiling was so wet, the whole section of wall fell down on the plumbers' heads when they removed the crown molding.

They gave us new pipework, and extended it down to our soil stack in the basement and up to the vent that goes to the roof. They did NOT have to tear up the bathroom floor *HALLELUJAH* and put the toilet back where it belonged. These guys were done by 3:30 p.m. and did their very best to stay as clean as possible, using a shop vac on all floors, and wiping everything down with windex and other cleaning agents as they went. There was still dust everywhere, and I probably mopped the floors 4 times before I went to bed that night. However, when I did go to bed, I was a showered and clean person and the house was fairly clean. It was wonderful. The best part of it is, it didn't cost as much as I thought it would. Of course, it was still expensive, but I felt they were fair, they did excellent work, and they did their work quickly and thoroughly. I actually enjoyed their presence. Who would have thought?