The Big Dig

We started on Saturday by having the space below the stairwell dug at least three feet, hoping, praying to find a drain. No dice.

So, Monday, a plumbing crew visits. They first used a camera, running it’s flexible lens down our cleanout pipe, to find ‘the end of the drain!!’


Flexy camera tube going down outtake pipe.


Guess what. There is no piping that extends from the Sewer pipe, to the stair well. Go figure. We can only speculate why someone would spend an arm and a leg to rehab a basement, and then not protect their investment by properly installing drainage. So, the drainage and piping was never finished. We are going to finish the job. Well, not ‘we’ as in Dan and I digging out tile and concrete, but we have a nice crew that is working on it as we speak.



Hallelujah! Here is freshly installed pipe, poking out of the dirt. That is prettier than tulips!


Another drain miracle! Here is the finished drain, complete with concrete. This whole project took less than two days. These guys are amazing.

There you have it. ‘The Big Dig’ Hopefully, unlike the Big Dig in Boston, this one will not take years, only days. We must wait a few weeks for the concrete to cure, and we are going on a hunt to find the tile to replace. Here’s what it looks like.