It came from the sewer...

When we bought our lot, there was a sewer pipe running down the length of it, smack in the middle. The pipe was from the large care facility that faces out to Prescott St; apparently it had been easier for them to run the sewer slightly downhill to Going St. than it was to go ever so slightly uphill to Prescott, and since our lot was just another part of the parcel that the care facility was on, that's what they did. Then in 2004 the lot was sectioned off and purchased by what will be our new neighbors, who apparently either did not realize there was a sewer pipe running the length of their new property or else didn't care. When they put the lot up for sale themselves, however, it became a big deal, as you can't build pretty much anything on top of someone else's sewer line. It's cool and all to be a landowner, but not so much of a non-buildable lot in the Cully neighborhood. Basically, in order to build a house on the lot, the sewer line had to be moved. So this was our first order of business.

We got what seemed like a reasonable bid from a professional seeming excavator (regardless of what I am about to write, I can continue to recommend Konnell excavation for your excavation needs). The plan was to move the sewer line to the edge of the property where the 10' no-build easement wouldn't effect anything. After some wrangling with the city, work commenced. John Konnell got a permit detailing the work and walked the property with the city inspector, again detailing the plan of action. Check. Digging commences. Check. Pipe is laid & connected. Check. Pipe is reburied. Check. Same inspector comes back out for the pressure test, which is the final step in the process. Check... uhhh... shit.

It was at this point that the inspector decide to point out that all of the pipe, which had been permitted and approved at 4" should actually be 6". All 190' of it. Several frantic phone calls to the city and quite a bit it swearing ensue. The city was unfazed by both threats and pleading and maintained that the code calls for 6" pipe, and the fact that both a permit was issued for 4" pipe and that it was verbally okayed by the inspector before it was placed were unimportant- the important thing was the code is the code and we would just have to deal with it. There was a conspicuous lack of admission of guilt or responsibility on the part of the city, which I guess is to be expected. They also did not offer to pay for what was essentially their error. Shocker. So we were left to work this out with Konnell, which we did, and Konnell was left to basically re-do the job they had just done, only with slightly bigger pipe this time, which they did.

And that is the tale of the sewer.

Here's some more pictures of the lot. These were all taken in the little break between what I like to think of as the "practice" sewer job and the "actual" sewer job.

Heavy equipment infringing on the root space of our Doug Fir:

The arborist really freaked out about that one.

This is where our driveway will be. Driveways apparently aren't permanent structures so it's okay to have a sewer under them.

 All our shit in the back. Good god we have too much crap.

New pipe (blue) connected to old pipe (black):

Excavator. And just below the bucket of the excavator, you can see the new or at least what will be the new cleanout of the sewer sticking up:

 There it is again!



 
 We apparently purchased quite a bit of gravel. I suspect we may purchase some more.

There was a lot of this lying around. Jeff wanted to buy the guys all round of drinks over the re-do because that's the kind of guy he is. I suggested he get a case of energy drinks as apparently this is their fave.

The end.

The arborist plan is almost complete, details coming soon. Lot of expensive tree massages and special soil in our future. Also, the bank has said as of yesterday that we really truly have given them the last document they need to submit to whoever for our final approval, and that now it should be only 2 weeks until we can start digging. For realz this time. We have even been given a tentative dig date- Aug 28th. Keep your fingers crossed.