Backyard Water Feature

“Sam, there’s water pouring out of your house…” Mom Caetano, December 27th (day of the family dinner for 10 being hosted at our house)

After I washed a few veggies my mom came in from the back door and informed me that a pipe below the kitchen window was pouring water. Bizarre. She returned outside to view the pipe but this time, when I turned on the water, unlike before, nothing happened. Thinking perhaps it was just a freak occurrence we returned to our prep work.

After peeling the sweet potatoes, to keep the sink clear of debris I ran the garbage disposal. Much to my displeasure I then heard the distinct sound of water and sweet potatoes grounds plopping onto the rocks about 3 feet below the kitchen window. I went outside to scope out the issue and was greeted by a lovely little pile of sweet potatoes skins and a nasty little puddle of water.

It turns out that nearly everything that was getting washed and/or ground up was shooting out of the pipe protruding about 2 inches from our house. Awesome. Enter the faint music of honky banjoes playing in the back of my mind. For a quick fix, since we really didn’t need a ton of water messing with our foundation, we slid a container beneath the hole, as seen here. Delicious, I know. And yes, sliding a plastic container under a food shooting pipe did make those white trash banjoes play a little louder.

A few days later Jonathan contacted our plumber, the amazing Larry Nicely. Larry explained that the pipe needed to be capped with a specific plumbing device and informed Jonathan on where to buy it and how to install it. Excellent. Food was no longer shooting out of the house; however, now our sink was refusing to drain. Fortunately, that very day, Larry was able to make it out to our house with his trusty plumbing snake and resolve the issue completely by removing 3 clogs of god knows what. Ah, the joys of home ownership.