When Tyler and I were first looking at houses, his wish list included a swimming pool. Somehow, when we purchased our property at Stone Road, I don't think he imagined this dream would come true.

For those of you who have been to our house, you'll undoubtably be thinking, "I don't remember a pool." Well, that's because you most likely didn't go into the basement after our Greywater system had become clogged. It was when the Greywater system first backed up that Tyler and I came to understand why the furnace was on a pad of cement that was 2 inches higher than the rest of the basement.

The Greywater system is used to carry the waste water from the sinks, showers and washer away from the house. The water travels down to a drain in the basement floor and eventually ends up in the ditch just North of our house. However, the plumbing in the house - like most everything else - is installed very poorly and is prone to causing the Greywater system to become clogged allowing the greywater to back up into the basement. As the Roto-Rooter guys put it, "the plumbing is the stupidest we've seen." So, Tyler and I aren't exaggerating.

While Tyler and I are avid do-it-yourselfers, there are some jobs we gladly hire someone else to do. Unclogging the Greywater system is probably #1 on the list - second only to the roof. First, the equipment is big and bulky. Second, unclogging drain pipe = MESSY!! So, I'm more than happy to have them come in and fix the problem.

The Roto-Rooter guys have unclogging our drain down to almost a science. They start out by the ditch and unclog the pipe up to the house. This involves shoving a hose, with a slow spray of water coming from it, up the Greywater system towards the house. They pull the hose back out when they see water start gushing from the system. Then, they head into the house to see if that was enough to get the water to drain from the basement. If that wasn't enough, then they crack open the drainage pipe in the basement and work on the clog from that angle. Once the clog has been removed, you can see the water start flowing towards the drain. All-in-all, it seems to take them about a half hour to unclog the system.