That's Poopy

Plumbing emergencies like to happen on weekends. I have proof: There was this time, this time, and this time! 

Add Friday night to the list. The sewage pump failed.

Nova texted Carrie when she couldn't flush and her shower wouldn't drain.

I tried to plug and unplug the pump, but it caused the fuse to blow (which shares a circuit with Shane's bedroom of all places. It reset his clock, so he woke up at 6:25 AM the next day thinking it was after 7 AM).

We told Nova she could use our bathrooms upstairs until it was fixed. I don't think she ever came up.

The sewage situation forced us to make a decision. Did we A) Prioritize fixing the toilet rapidly and pay the price, or B) Try to be more economic about it?

We went with option A. Carrie and I rely on Nova to cover for Carrie's horse habitat and anything to potentially drive away a good situation causes Carrie a lot of anxiety.

We ate the premium. We are fortunate to be in a situation where we weren't forced to make a choice. I choose to look at it as helping the local economy. It was $99 for the Saturday visit (which beat the $169 another plumber offered). I'm sure we could have paid $300 less in parts and labor if we'd ordered the pump on Amazon and waited to get bids. Hopefully, Nova feels valued.

Sewage has a certain aroma. I talked to the plumber to figure out what was going on. I'm always curious to learn more. If there were free classes for trades at the high school I'd probably even sit in on some for fun.

The old unit looked pretty shitty.

The plumber was able to get it to turn on while I manned the fuse box, but the floater didn't activate. It would have been a somewhat cheaper fix to only that, but the pump was original to the house. I expected it to die sooner rather than later.

While he was replacing everything, the plumber noticed the valve in the pipe was broken and loose. He theorized that when the pump activated, sometimes it would block the pipe so that water flow couldn't go anywhere. Then the pump would run until it started to overheat and shut down. That could have caused the fuse issues, the floater issues, and wore out the pump.

The new pump will last at least 10 years if things go my way. And that will be without the motor or something else burning out in the next 6 months.