EXPLOSION!

Earlier this week was pretty much a catastrophe. In the basement there is a very large contraption. It is the septic tank pump.

When this house was built back in the 1930's there were two septic tanks for two parts of the house. At some point one of the tanks was closed down, probably filled. As a consequence all the waste water from the dishwasher, washing machine, and kitchen now goes into one tank. It gets there via this large pump. If there were waste from the sewing room bathroom or the powder room it would also go thru it. The waste from the primary bath and upstairs bathroom goes directly into the septic as it's in the side yard by those rooms, no need to travel thru the pump. All good, except when it's not. There is a monitoring alarm system connected to the pump. The other night it started beeping. LOUDLY. And there were flashing lights.

I was freaking out. I had just put a load of wash on, could that be setting it off? Luckily there was a sticker on the pipes above it that said 'In case of emergency call this number', Garrity Water Solutions. Garrity was the company that had done the inspection on the well and had installed the new well pump a few weeks ago. I called them and they told me to umplug the pump and re-set it. I did that and it seemed to work, but they would come out the following day. Two nice technicians showed up in the afternoon, Ben and Wes. They were working away in the basement checking out the system when all of a sudden I heard a very loud noise, almost a full-blown explosion. Then voices, yelling. "Fuck! FUCK!! TURN IT OFF! TURN IT OFF!!" Then, "It got in my eyes...and my mouth!" This did not sound good. A few minutes later I went downstairs, "Are you guys ok??" The were not. A pipe gasket above the pump gave out. Waste water went everywhere. They were drenched in it. The grossness of this cannot be overstated. There was water all over the basement floor. They said that whover had installed the pump did it very poorly. They had used fittings and gaskets that were the completely wrong size to stand up to the pressure the pump needs to generate to get the waste up and out to the septic tank in the side yard. I asked if I was going to need a new pump, or, worse, if the whole system was shot. They said no, they'd take care of it. Awhile later they had replaced the problem joint piece and left. Surprisingly, they were in good spirits considereing they were wet with yuck. Later, I was glad it was not poop water, just old kitchen waste water. But that's not the end of it. Fifteen minutes after they left I was hand washing some dishes when THE ALARM WENT OFF AGAIN. I re-set it again and went to take a shower. When I got out it was beeping AGAIN. I called the emergency 24 hour emergency number (it was 11:30). I think I woke up who I later found out was the owner, Evan Garrity. He said they'd show up tomorrow. Even himself showed up. After examination he determined that the problem was a faulty float inside the pump tank. It goes off if waste level gets too high for the pump to grind up and push out. He also replaced several of the pipe joint gaskets around the pump to make sure they were strong enough to withstand the pump's pressure. So a THOUSAND dollars later for parts and labor, all was fixed. Very expensive but if it prevents another explosion it was well worth it.