Clearing out a sewer line .

[Matthew Paul]

Had a fun job 3 days ago . The good part it was 65 degrees in Feb. in Md .  The back story , I get a call on Sat , while I am on a Ski trip with my 2 boys , from a tenant , the toilet is clogged and they looked at the rear cleanout and it was full . So I tell them call I will call my plumber , and if its something they flushed , they pay . They werent too happy , but its in the lease . Plumber comes out snakes the main and cant get thru . He calls me , the bill is $ 300 and they dont have the money , I tell him send me a bill . ( He lets me know how far in the snake went )   I show up on Monday , first thing I tell them is if its not roots they pay the bill AND I CHARGE FOR MY TIME .   I Measure off where the snake stopped , and start digging , I find the pipe in less than 1/2 hour . I jump in the hole and cut out a 10 ft section of PVC 4 in pipe .  Yes it was messy but you dig about 2 ft deeper so any crap goes in the bottom then you put in dirt to stand on.   The 10 ft section was heavier than it should have been , there were white tail mice , panty hose ,a bunch of legos  and cooking grease and a ring with a diamond .  I show them and the woman was excited cause she thought she lost the ring .  She puts out her hand , I put the ring in my pocket .   First things first , I tell her , The plumber was $ 300 , and digging this up and repairing is $ 500 . I need $ 800 .  She doesnt want to pay , complains that its my house and I shouldnt charge .  Her husband tells her to quiet up , and get the checkbook . He tells her it was cheap , any plumber would have been $ 1500 just for the digging . 

I get the check , and hand them the ring .    The guy tells me when the wife was in the house , that he paid $ 15K for that ring and had no insurance . 

I added a cleanout while I was there so I could a 50 ft snake instead of a 100 ft when needed again . The whole job took about 2 hours .  Its nice having your own backhoe .

The dates on the camera are wrong , its old and I lost the manual