A massive pool of stagnant, foul smelling water suddenly bubbling up in the middle of the side yard made it obvious that the main underground drainage line was completely done for. The pipe was totally collapsed under the weight of some old tree roots, which meant the only fix was to dig a massive, four foot deep trench to rip the broken plastic out and replace the whole section.
The digging phase was an absolute nightmare from the first scoop. The soil along the side of the house is tightly packed dirt mixed with old construction debris, buried bricks, and thick roots that my basic shovel couldn’t even dent. I spent three hours swinging a heavy mattock in a tight space, completely drenched in sweat and breathing in the awful smell of trapped sewer gas. By the time I actually exposed the broken pipe, I was standing knee deep in a muddy hole with water slowly seeping into the toes of my boots.
Cutting away the shattered PVC and slipping the new rubber couplers onto the muddy pipe took way too much wrestling. Everything was coated in slick clay, so my wrenches kept slipping and I kept scraping my fingers against the raw dirt walls of the trench. Getting the new pipe pitch perfectly angled so the water actually flows downward without pooling required checking the level over and over again while stuck inside a claustrophobic trench.
Shoveling all that heavy, wet mud back into the hole took another two hours of back breaking work. My lower back is completely locked up, my favorite boots are totally ruined from the muck, and I have a mountain of leftover wet clay sitting on my lawn that I still have to figure out how to haul away. I am completely skipping dinner tonight and going straight to bed because my arms feel like lead weights.