The Joys of Homeownership

Add to the list of many mistakes we made when buying our first house... Not having a plumber inspect the main plumbing stack prior to making a final offer. As many of you may remember, we had a horrible inspector, however, one of the things we made a point of getting documented was the suspicious leak around the plumbing stack. He couldn't find the source of the leak, but noted the enormous amount of barnacles on the cast iron stack and recommended replacement. I'm not sure who's idea it was, but after the previous owners refused to replace it because they didn't have time (or so they say), we requested a $900 allowance for repair. Well, of course, we thought we could put it off for awhile- after all they didn't have any problems with it, right? Wrong. Last night it turned into a slow waterfall, soaking the carpet and making it obvious that we couldn't wait any longer for repairs.

We have someone come out for an estimate today and it turns out that whatever genius suggested $900 would be sufficient was completely off. Try more like $8-10k!!! So.... here we are, unable to use our upstairs bath for fear of further ruining our family room, wondering how we can manage to get this fixed. If anyone knows a plumber that wants a little side work, please send him our direction!!! Other than that, we can do some of the prep work to save on labor, and we are consulting our insurance company and homeownership warranty for any assistance they can provide. What a mess...