Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Other Professionals Laugh at Stu's Story

I did more research yesterday in an attempt to resolve this misunderstanding withRoto Rooter. I don't know the local guy's full name, so I'll just call him Stu. I think when Stu says my plumbing is illegal he means my plumbing isn't up to code. Stu needs to fix my plumbing properly, that is when he fixes what his men broke he needs to make sure what he put into place is up to code, but whether or not my plumbing was up to code in the first place doesn't matter.
I dove into my paperwork that I had from the woman I bought the place from. She was single and in the Air Force, and she had a warranty on the home, so I didn't think she was doing any illegal plumbing. Eventually I found a local plumbing company called Universal. I called and explained my problem. The guy laughed because the way Stu's guys broke the drain really is the sort of thing a complete novice would do. In fact they did worse than a home-owner would do because they were going down the drain with a heavy duty motorized snake, not the little ones home-owners (such as myself) use. I didn't get the paperwork that I wanted because he didn't think they would be able to find it, but I felt very reassured from our conversation that my view of events is accurate.
I also called the company that did my home inspection and asked if there was any way they could help me. They said they don't even check to see if the plumbing is up to code because old plumbing gets grandfathered in. My house was built in 1947. I am sure some of the cast iron stuff isn't up to code. They broke pvc pipe, but pvc has been around for most of my life and frankly it just doesn't matter. They could lay some pipe to code today and some official could change the code tomorrow. It doesn't matter to a homeowner in my situation. It might matter to Stu, because it will cost him more to fix his error.
I have to wait until Thursday, take off of work, and wait for Stu to come and look down my drain. He says he's coming with the code book, or some such thing, but I really hope he looks down the drain, sees the torn remains of the pvc down there, and, well gets the revelation that he needs to fix what his people broke!

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