How We Almost Died!!! written by Nate

On Saturday we finally got a plumber to show up to replace our old busted concrete sewer line. It was old and broken and full of tree roots. We have been trying to get a plumber to come out and fix it since we moved into the house back in 2006. We could not even get a Perry plumber to answer our calls or call back when we left a message.

Finally I got the number for a plumber in Stillwater. I called him and he came out the next day to check out our problem. He gave us a quote and said he would start in two weeks. Then he disappeared also. It was a month later before I could get a hold of him again. He apologized profusely and said he had a death in the family. His sister had lost the battle with her cancer. I promptly forgave him for disappearing and looked forward to his arrival at my house. The appointed day arrived and he did not. We waited most of the day for him and he finally showed up at 3pm. And asked if he could leave his back hoe there and come back in the morning. He know he could not finish the job before it got dark and did not want the liability of an open trench over night.

He and his son showed up at 8:45 on Saturday and got to work. We would come out and chat with him every now and then. It was a beautiful day and I got to be the guy that stood around and watched another person work. It was great. Well things were going along swimmingly, the old pipe came out and the new one went in. He started snaking out the remaining pieces towards the house and got it unclogged. And boy was it ever clogged.

Then he tried snaking towards the sewer main. This where the problems started. His snake was hitting a block that it could not get past. So he dug a little more and found another section of the old pipe that was broken.

But in this section of digging he exposed a section of the gas line that was marked as being over 18 inches away. He tried to be very careful but with the gas line being a one inch plastic line and having 50 PSI on it just a bump from the back side of his scoop was enough to cut the line. As soon as the gas started shooting out he turned off his tractor and dove into the trench to pinch off the line. He yelled over to his son to bring the duct tape and pipe clamps from the truck.

His son brought them over and then tried to light up his cigarette. Boy howdy did the plumber lay into his boy. He helped him realized that lighting anything would not be a good idea right then.

Well he got the leak stopped and the pipe fixed. We called the gas company and they sent out two guy to patch the line. But our poor plumber will have to pay the bill to have it fixed. Because of the ridiculously wide window that the state law has said will pass for a locate of an underground pipe or line.

When the Call Okie person comes and locates there is a 4 foot window that the like could be in. 2 feet to either side of the line they mark. That is just like saying “Yup, there is something buried there but I ain’t gunna tell ya where or how deep. Good luck. And if you do hit it I will charge you $500 to fix it for you.”

I work for Charles Machine Work Inc. IN the Subsite Electronics department, we make equipment that will locate a buried cable of pipe with in an 8 inch window. That is just 4 inches to either side of the line. But the Call Okie people won’t use our equipment because it would make them more liable. They are comfortable with their ability to not take responsibility for the crappy locate because the “law” says they are in spec.

That just means that the poor plumber that cut our gas line is stuck, which is the first gas line in 10years he has cut, with a repair bill that was bigger than what he charge me to replace my sewer line. So if you need a plumber in the Stillwater area call me and I will give you his number. He has my vote.