For the past few years, usually in November, our sewer line to the septic tank has stopped up. Each time we have had one plumber or another come and unstop the line and all has been well for another year. This year the same thing happened but with one major difference -- the line stopped up again the day after the plumber left. At around $200 per visit of the plumber we decided it was finally time to get to the root of the problem and have it repaired if possible. The plumbers believed that the sewer line was possibly crushed or broken under six to eight feet of dirt under the concrete slab floor of our garage. The only reasonable way to determine and hopefully fix the problem was to break through the floor and then dig down to the pipe. Needless to say this looked like a major undertaking to us, and that's the real reason we had not tried to fix the problem before now.

We got estimates from three different plumbing firms and based on a gut feeling as well as the lowest estimate, we decided to have Colonial Plumbing and Heating do the work. As you will see from the following pictures, we made an excellent choice!

We cleared some floor space in the garage and the digging commenced

They discovered a cave under the floor that was almost large enough for a person to crawl into

The cave was caused by concrete -- probably dumped as excess from the garage footing -- pushing one end of this section of pipe down about six inches out of alignment with the rest of the pipe, thereby creating a mini (not)septic tank under the garage floor!

This is the new section of pipe temporarily in place. Before being installed permanently, rock was placed under it to secure it in place. You can see the outcropping of concrete just to the right of the pipe that they had to break through to get to the pipe. We're sure the weight of that concrete is what caused the pipe to become disconnected.

This is what the garage floor looked like. I could imagine how much clean-up I would need to do after the job.

My fears were unwarranted! This is what the floor looked like after the Colonial Plumbing and Heating job was done. I'm sure it was cleaner than when they started.

Here they have dug the trench to lay the pipe to the county sewer line under the street

Here they have brought in a larger backhoe. The county engineer told me we would need to dig down six to seven feet to tie our sewer line into the county sewer line. Wrong! The county sewer was 10 feet deep!

You need a large hole to work in when you are down 10 feet.

Some trench, eh, what...

... and it extended into the back yard

The side yard looks good after job completion...

... as does the back yard

If you live in the Central Virginia area and you need any plumbing work done, we highly recommend Colonial Plumbing and Heating. We will definitely call on them should we have plumbing needs in the future.