DIY & Home Improvement

I had him go snake the line, and he called and said he couldn't get through because there was a break in the line. He recommended another company to run their camera to see where the break was, so I called them. They marked on the ground where the line went, which they determined with their camera. Just a few feet beyond where the marking ended was the power pole. Any idiot could see that's what happened, and I can't believe they didn't put the pieces together and conclude that whoever put in the new pole put it on top of my line. They gave me estimates for replacing the line, and then were sort of rude when I let them know I was going to get some more estimates.

So I called another company for their estimate, which they gave me. I was pretty sick about how much I thought it was going to cost me.....anywhere from around $10,000 to over $25,000. While I was thinking about how I was going to proceed, the guy from that company called and told me about hydro jetting. I thought it was worth a gamble of $250 to possibly save tens of thousands of dollars.

One of my sons is an engineer for one of the top construction companies in North America, and is familiar with hydro jetting. He lives about two hours away and came down to observe and advise, and he's the one who figured out what happened with the power pole. Within a few hours a subcontractor for the power company had fixed the situation.

I never thought I had a reason to question the guy we had always hired to clean sewer lines, but based on the fact that he recommended a company that I believe didn't have a clue about what they were doing, I'm done hiring him. So I guess the moral of the story is to be very careful about making recommendations to customers about other companies. I'm pretty suspicious that they knew the power pole was on my line, because it was so obvious, but if I had hired them to put in a new line, they'd have still made their money before letting me know what the problem was.

Incidentally, the contractor who did put in the new line, courtesy of the power company, told me it happens more than people think that poles get put on top of sewer lines. It's sort of funny that the "Call Before You Dig" company would do that.