o magic tree, o magic tree, o where is the magic tree?

so yesterday we had a flood out the back of the house. the eco toilet flush jammed on in a fit of uneconess – indeed it’s difficult to know how less eco it could be – and this appeared to be causing something of a problem as the water came up our kitchen drain and just sort of stood around looking foolish and not knowing where to go. yuk.

Wondered about get a long rod or something. But stopped wondering that fairly quickly. 

Wondered if we had a collapased sewer and swiftly envisaged the kitchen being taken down, dug up and….

Phoned for drains expert. Two hours later he stuck a jet down our front drain and shifted the block. It’s technically called a syphon and it probably hasn’t been cleaned for like, decades. With a suck and a splash and a swosh the whole lot vanished.

Leaving in its trail a rather unpleasant odour(sp?) knocking around the hall way and living room,

O magic tree, where are you now?

Actually I might actually prefer walking around smelling of that drain than Space.NK.Men. Is someone going to sue me for that remark?

times they are a draining

We were unsure as to where the main sewer exit was to the house. Our plumber was set to put the soil stack out the new bathroom, straight down into the drain outside the kitchen window. They dug it up today to find this was not possible as it’s just a simple bottle trap for grey water. So after some deliberation we – sorry, the builders – dug a hole in the utility room and hit the outlet from the downstair toilet. Huzzah. Soil stack will now wrap round house, shoot across flat roof, serge down through flat roof and exit underfloor under wash basin. Tadaa!

This is good if a bit worrying at time. Good because one option was to try and attach it to the vent that came out of the utility wall. We now know this vent goes precisely nowhere. It’s just been left in the wall and tiled over inside the room. Can’t believe it.

Getting plastered next week.