Shortly after having placed an order for all the cabinets, their hardware and the paraphernalia necessary to construct our built in entertainment/media center, a problem arose. Some problems you can ignore, put off for another day and some you can not, this was one of those that could not be ignored. It began with a sluggish toilet in the guest bathroom, it had given us trouble in the past, enough trouble to call in plumbers. Turned out the lift pump to our septic tank had never been connected. Once an electrician was called to run the wires and connect the pump all was well...for awhile.
Photo above...This lovely eyesore is control center for the septic system lift pump. Should the pump fail, it is supposed to light up its flashing warning signal. If it did so, we never saw it !
Now the same scenario was playing out, same sluggish toilet, a repeat performance; encore if you prefer. Soon other drains were being affected and John surmised that the culprit must be the lift pump; the pump was not functioning. Of course this had to happen on a weekend so the possibility of contacting someone to come out and survey the situation was nil. The problem would have to wait until Monday. On Monday the professional confirms John's diagnosis...the pump is kaput...we'll need a new one...he doesn't have a pump with him...he will have to get a pump...we'll have to wait a couple of days for him to get one and then return to install it.
Photo above...All one can see of the lift pump is a small metal box jutting out of the ground.
Photo below...In both pictures you can see evidence that the pump site had been dug up and filled back in as the pump unit is buried beneath ground; digging is the only way of getting to it to remove and replace it.
Usually a lift pump last for years and years, I'm talking like 15 or 20 years much like a good water heater. Why did ours conk out after only 2 years? Just our luck I guess or Murphy's Law, we had indebted ourselves with the purchase of the plasma HDTV and then the cabinets for the media center, so naturally something had to quit. Had it not been a $2,000 lift pump it would have been our refrigerator, or stove or maybe the front load washing machine.
But as they say; "It never rains that it pours". ...TO BE CONTINUED...
.webp)
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