Discovery
Family weekend at the Wardenburg's ended with a big home-cooked meal and some potato skins down the garbage disposal. My mom even commented how great it is that our disposal could handle potato peels. Well, the disposal handled them fine, but we now think they were the straw that broke the camel's back. Instead of water backing up into the kitchen sink, we found out that the pipe that hooked up to an old dishwasher is still tied into the sink line but not capped up on the other end. This allowed water to back up into this pipe and spill onto our basement floor. Awesome.
Home warranty
The house came with a one-year HSA home warranty so we decided to give the warranty folks a call to see if this would be covered. They wouldn't know if they would cover it until the cause of the clog was determined by a professional - of their choosing. They sent over The Plumbing Company to diagnosis the problem. He cut our pipe and tried to use his hand-held snake to plow through the clog. To no avail, he suggested we might have a caved-in pipe and could possibly need to jack hammer up the basement floor to replace that part of the pipe. The home warranty folks said they may be able to cover that if the cave-in was in such and such place so only so far underground. Bullshit.
As a first time homeowner, I couldn't believe this was possible. I wanted a second opinion. Lucas talked to his very handy, capable, smart father for advice while I did the same. Unfortunately neither of their strength's is plumbing. Fortunately, when I called my dad, my uncle was standing right there. He said he knows a guy in Grimes/Madrid who will take good care of us. Lucas called up Kevin at Kevin Evans Plumbing, who said he'd swing by to check it out. Within 30 minutes of using his snake with an electric motor, he had unclogged the so-called "caved-in" pipe. He placed a rubber coupler around the cut in the pipe and said we should be good to go for a long time. Amazing!
On top of that, he didn't even charge us! He just said my uncle owed him dinner. We still purchased a restaurant gift card for him because not paying anything at all to not jack hammer our floor is unacceptable. While a gift card isn't justice for his services, he did just earn a new customer for future services and referrals.
Diagnosis
Kevin didn't deny that was one tough clog. We told him a little old lady had lived here previously and then the house sat empty for nearly four months before we moved in. He said that makes sense because all the grease, food and crap that got stuck over the years had four months to harden and solidify. The potato peels were just too much for the pipe.
Takeaways
Kevin says don't put potato peels or pasta down the garbage disposal. Everything else is usually fine, even egg shells. Glad to learn that now! In the end, we didn't have to file a claim with the home warranty people. Most of the warranties are pretty limited, and they'll find anyway possible to not cover your claims. Glad the seller paid for it and not us.