10/3/08: It's all shot
Oct. 3rd, 2008 09:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
davidlevineThe bathroom remodel has been more than usually stressful today.
The plumbers came to unclog the basement drain. We knew it was bad, but it proved to be even worse than they'd thought. The drain pipe in the floor had completely disintegrated, which means that for the last no-one-knows-how-many years, every time we used the kitchen sink or dishwasher at least some of the wastewater went into the soil beneath the house rather than into the sewer as it was supposed to.
They had to jackhammer out six feet of rotten pipe from the basement floor, leaving an open a trench in our basement floor and dirt everywhere. They decided to leave it open until Monday so that the sodden dirt under the floor can dry out a little. Next week they'll jackhammer out the remaining eighteen feet or so, then fill in the trench with concrete.
At least we can use our kitchen sink and dishwasher, though not the clothes washer, this weekend.
The few of you who have read the magic lesbian plumber story (which has now been at F&SF for over 40 days, which indicates they are at least giving it serious consideration... either that, or the rejection got lost in the mail) will be amused to know that the problematic basement drain is the same one that, right at the beginning of the story, has a nixie living in it.
One thing about remodeling a bathroom is that you get a real feeling for the bones, sinew, and nerves of your house. Also a real feeling that whoever did the plumbing for this place back in 1913 was an IDIOT! He had no sense of the fact that water is supposed to run DOWN and air UP, and a real tendency to cut through important structural elements of the house's frame to make his plumbing life easier.
The other bathroom-related thing that happened today was that the plasterers came by to put on a second coat. But it's been cold and rainy, and the first coat wasn't nearly dry enough for them to do anything. So they'll be back tomorrow (Saturday), and until then there's been a constant roar of fans and space heaters in addition to the intermittent jackhammering.
I couldn't concentrate too well today, for some reason, and wound up cutting less than 800 words. But more than the small number of words removed today, I'm concerned about the fact that I'm on page 245 of a 572-page manuscript and I've cut less than 3000 words in total. No way I'm going to cut 30,000 words at this pace... I might get 10,000 if I'm really ruthless. I'm either going to have to do a second and probably a third pass, cutting stuff I'd really rather keep, or go ahead and submit it at about 120,000 words. Currently I'm leaning toward the latter plan. We'll see how far I get in this pass... maybe I'll find a whole chapter that can be excised (though even that would only buy me 5000 or 6000 words.)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-04 05:05 am (UTC)Before I had the drain work done that I mentioned in a comment to Kate, some of all our drain water, including the "black" water was leaking into the side yard, thankfully several feet down. But when the ground got saturated by rain, some of that flowed into the basement stair pit, which is why I knew it needed work.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-04 05:06 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-04 05:10 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-04 06:45 am (UTC)For the record, it's my understanding that unless there's a problem in the construction of a fan, they're generally safe, as opposed to the heaters, which you're wise to shut off when you're out. I've had many customers had near misses with fires with heaters that appear to work okay and then suddenly get way too hot too fast.
When I was taking classes in horticulture I remember one of the folks saying that he always just bought the cheapest fan he could find of any brand, plugged it in and ran continuously it until it failed. It was less expensive than getting a special greenhouse fan that turned on and off based on heat and humidity and he had fewer problems with damping off. What this tells me is that it's very likely that fans can run in a damp environment indefinitely and when they go kaput they just stop with no danger. Nothing's a sure thing, but I thought you might find the data point valuable or at least a little reassuring.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-04 07:13 am (UTC)Though the upside is that, after a fashion, it lasted this long. Someone replumbed our house in the late 1980s, and their stupidities haven't lasted half as long or half as 'well'. I give you a sample: pipe into water tank held on by half a turn of wrong sort of fitting, and poised to empty an entire tank of hot water over dining room and books at any moment. Plumber who replaced it said it was a miracle it hadn't broken. Myself, I think the only thing holding much of the plumbing together in this house was the limescale.
Bad pipe. Bad, bad, pipe! No water for you!
Date: 2008-10-04 07:17 am (UTC)(But it would be such a GOOD series...)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-04 09:21 am (UTC)Kind of glad that we got out of the house on Timberlake Drive when we did. The water pipe hookup from the street was originally made with irrigation-grade PVC which died of stress-fractures the second year we were in the house. It connected to a copper fitting at the corner of the garage which ran diagonally UNDER the concrete pad to the water heater and cold water supply. The plumber who replaced the PVC with space-shuttle-grade pipe mentioned that the copper pipe under there would likely fail within three to five years, given the rate at which the lime in the pad would corrode the copper.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-04 01:30 pm (UTC)I'm so sorry! I'd have a hard time concentrating if my floor was ripped up too. That would be stressful.
I just love older houses--they have history and feel so solid.
When we were house shopping, J.C. and I fell in love with this wonderful Victorian house from 1912, but it had some serious wiring/electrical issues, and true repairs would involve a lot of money and ripping out several walls.
So, we did not buy that one. I do like the house we chose, but sometimes, I still think of that old Victorian place rather wistfully (smiles).
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-04 02:59 pm (UTC)The novel--I also feel that particular pain. I hacked around 2000 words off of Pledges on my first pass to take it down to about 132,000 words. I'm doing a second pass to take off another 2000. No way I can hack 30k off of that story without severe changes that will make it a lesser story. I could get the 2k easily if I hacked out one scene, but it leads into another scene that's important for later on in the book. So it's down to the sentence-by-sentence level. So I write something new, then go back to the edits...sigh.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-04 04:09 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-04 05:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-04 05:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-04 05:40 pm (UTC)In addition to the stupidities from 1913, we found a place where some cheap plastic T fittings had been added to the pipes going to the washer, and the plumber said they could go any time. Based on the age of the pipes they were connected to, this has to have been done fairly recently, and I have a vague memory of them being added, but not why. Anyway, they're gone now, and with any luck the washer will be reconnected in a few days.
Re: Bad pipe. Bad, bad, pipe! No water for you!
Date: 2008-10-04 05:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-04 05:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-04 09:17 pm (UTC)