Water demons and my own stupidity; plumbing woes

We think we are being plagued by water demons. It's been a weird week full of water issues...

We were on vacation last week, staying in resort style place near the ocean that was mostly build in the 1930's, in the Arts and Crafts style. I found out the toilet was also from 1930 after it wouldn't stop running and having to listen to it all night long. We called the front desk and spent a day and a half trying to get them to come and fix it. I tried to get access to the inside of the tank, but it wouldn't budge. Figured they had it locked down somehow. Anyway, no parts available for such an old thing, so they patched together a fix that only partially fixed it. We ended up just shutting the water off when we weren't using it, turning it on when we were. My stupidity for just not doing that at the beginning.

We get home on Thursday night and do laundry on Friday. Clothes were not getting the soap washed out. Found out the pump wasn't discharging all the water. I've had this washer for 20 years, and have repaired it a number of times, but it was time for a replacement. Picked up a Speed Queen on Saturday and installed it.

Sunday morning the garage is flooded. Fuck. After tracing the leak to the wall, I tore out some drywall and found I had dislodged the water softener tank discharge hose from the drainpipe when I installed the new washer. When it was doing its thing at 2am it was not going down the drain, but down the drywall. My own stupidity.

Tuesday, I get a notice from our water company that out line to the main was broken and flooding the neighbor's yard. Our 60-year-old water system has the mains running through the back yards, not the street. No meters either. It was all galvanized when they put it in. Our shutoff and connection to the main is in the neighbor's yard behind us. The leak is just on our side of the "curb shutoff", so we're responsible for the fix. Fuck.

Wednesday was calling plumbers, 8 in total, to get an estimate. 4 of them were not licensed, and of the remaining 4, two called back and showed up to look. I picked one and he is out there now, digging down 5 feet to get to the line.

I forgot to mention, Tuesday night our guest bath toilet had water spilling out through the handle on the side after my other half flushed it. Apparently, the handle and mechanism were stuck at a certain angle to the spillway (not sure of the name) that fills the bowl. The continually running water was able to seep along the linkage and out the side. I fixed that issue easily.

Toilets, washing machine, drains, water line. I'm ready to put this week behind me. Rant over.

 

Be thankful it was for the most lt was clean water.

The House shifted a 6" pipe from 3 bathrooms broke since it was in an unfinished sub basement and it was the drain that now worked real well .

The leak was not discovered to the level rose to the finished basement.

 

Gads I hate water issues. When we were renting the landlord wouldn't even let us hook up water to the fridge icemaker, and I didn't like it but I got why. Good luck on all that, seems like these things tend to follow a guy around.