they're fixed!

The pipes are all fixed!!!!! Thank God, Jason, and Deric Hart (a former student of ours and now part of One Stop Services)! Here's the whole story: Our downstairs bathroom has slowly gotten more and more water damage since we moved here over five years ago. We decided that it was time to look into getting it fixed, so Jason cut out part of the downstairs bathroom wall Saturday to see what the problem was. He could see the general area of the leak, but it looked to be in a part of the pipe covered by seemingly important pieces of wood. He called around for advice to make sure his ideas for fixing were correct, and then made a plan. He would saw the pipe between the upstairs and downstairs toilets and then pull out the leaking portion and replace it, making his experience working with a plumber in Virginia incredibly worthwhile. So he sawed and then pulled . . . and pulled . . . and pulled . . . and realized that this vertical pipe must have a horizontal connection somewhere. He found the connection and knew that he'd need additional supplies to continue fixing the problem. Now here's where I started losing track of time. I think the next step was that all the hardware stores were closed, so he wouldn't be able to get that additional part until the next morning. He would instead hook up a temporary pipe so that all of the things requiring water and drains to function would be usable except the upstairs toilet. We could live without one toilet for one night, so he set out to do the temporary fix. Just as he was about five minutes from being finished, the two-inch pipe slipped out of his grasp and slid about four feet down inside the three-inch pipe. With no way of getting that little guy out of there, he had to give up for the night. We were left with only the downstairs toilet (for "liquid business" ONLY since the smaller pipe was stuck down in the sewage drain) and sink. At a reasonable hour this morning, Jason called the Harts and asked for some help. Deric came and got the small pipe out and then stayed to finish reconnecting all the pipes. So now we have holes in the walls, but working indoor plumbing :-) The downstairs bathroom has to be remodeled anyway because of all the water damage to the wall and floor, so we're leaving the hole in the wall until we decide to move ahead with the rest of the work. We'll put a nice poster or something over the hole so that curious children don't try to climb in there and explore, though. I've always taken indoor plumbing for granted, but today I appreciate it completely! Oh, and the cause of the leak? Whoever nailed up the drywall nailed it right into the pipe. Brilliant, huh?!