{"id":2166,"date":"2020-01-30T19:32:51","date_gmt":"2020-01-31T03:32:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/buildingfromscratch.com\/?p=2166"},"modified":"2020-01-30T19:36:11","modified_gmt":"2020-01-31T03:36:11","slug":"sewer-proofing-the-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/buildingfromscratch.com\/index.php\/2020\/01\/30\/sewer-proofing-the-house\/","title":{"rendered":"Sewer proofing the house"},"content":{"rendered":"

We learned some hard lessons about sewer problems when we had a sewer line clog and and overflow in our basement<\/a>.\u00a0 We had another close call last month when our neighbors were having their sewer line replaced.\u00a0 The contractor ground out the tree roots blocking the line, in preparation for a trench less replacement, but accidentally pushed the debris into the sewer main, which became clogged.<\/p>\n

We happened to have some guys working in our basement that day and they noticed that a little water was coming up out of our floor drains.<\/p>\n

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We immediately called the plumber, fearing the worst; that our sewer line had again become clogged.\u00a0 The plumber ran a video camera down our line, and 2 feet into the sewer main which was full of water.\u00a0 So we called our city’s public works department, and they managed a swift response, even considering how late in the day it was.<\/p>\n

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Now, we have (and everyone should have) a back flow valve for problems like this, which prevents any sewage from the city main from coming back into our sewer line. But, if the city sewer main is clogged, the water from our house can’t get out, which was the cause of the water coming up out of our basement floor drains.\u00a0 If you don’t know that the sewer main is clogged, you don’t know enough to call someone before your own water use will cause a problem.<\/p>\n

The issue is that our house has a basement.\u00a0 Almost every other house in Santa Barbara doesn’t have a basement, which means that the sewer main is 6-10 feet below the lowest point in their house.\u00a0 But our house, with a fully plumbed basement, has only 24-30 inches between the depth of the sewer main, and the lowest fixture we have, the floor drains.\u00a0 This means that a problem in the sewer main (or our sewer line) can become a problem a lot faster than for everyone else.<\/p>\n

We found a brilliant solution.\u00a0 We’ve already been using sensors from a company called Proteus<\/a>:<\/p>\n