Monster in the Depths

I was tabbed to stay home and watch our plumber work yesterday (gee, what terrible hardship), and managed to sneak in some "work in progress" shots.

Here's the workshop-side hole for the drains when he left for 20 minutes to go get some more parts:



And here's the same hole when he broke for lunch:



Kinda looks like some freaky, plastic spider-monster climbing out of our basement floor, doesn't it?

Here, I've made an attempt to be helpful and labeled the parts for you:



You'll have to click the image to get the full effect. Go on, click it. CLICK IT!

Yeah, the guy works hard. He also plumbed in the shower drain and vent, but I didn't want to blow ALL my pictures on one post.

He also had a suggestion for how we can fill in the gap under our foundation, and get a little extra strength in the bargain. If we get a nice, thin concrete mix, roughly the consistency of self-leveling grout, we can inject it under the slab and use a vibrating tool to make sure it penetrates to the corners and gives us an even fill. It would also save us the trouble of doing our own concrete work - something we both suck at - when we cover up the drains again. We liked the idea so much (who wouldn't, what with vibrating AND penetrating in one go?), the War Department will be pricing out concrete companies next week.

Oh, and seeing as how I was home and the concrete repair place actually called back (for the first time in recorded history) and had an opening, they came by and patched the crack in the back wall. It occurs to me that I've never posted a picture of said exterior crack, so I'll be submitting you to yet another before-and-after style presentation:

Before:


After:


Now THAT, that's progress. We've been needing to do that for far too long. Of course, the guy showed up at about quarter to 11, and was done and gone by 12:30, but it's the kind of job that would have taken us all day. Much better to just pay the (ouch) $265 and get it done right.

So, this weekend brings more digging (joy!) in the front yard so the plumber can put in a new clean-out for the sewer line. We can also repair, or at least fill, the crack on the inside of the wall, and who knows? We might even get around to doing some more framing...