Sounds like krokodil. Nasty stuff.
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We had a meeting with our higher ups a year or so ago where I pointed out that, having grown up in a WV mining town, I was very familiar with treating workers as anonymous, replaceable cogs who can be ground down and then replaced when they break. I had thought I had escaped that mentality by going into medicine. It turns out I had not. The problem is, there are no replacements out there. Not for nurses, not for providers, not for front office staff. They just are not there. But this fact has not sunk in to those in charge. As people quit, they just drive the rest of us harder. It is not sustainable. And the collapse is becoming near impossible to hide. It will get much worse, for a multitude of reasons, but profit motive is leading the charge on that one.
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Got a call from the water company last Monday that informed me that I had used 20,000+ gallons of water in the first two weeks of September, and that theyâre concerned. I was, too. My house was built in 1867, and there are all kinds of weird things about. Plumbing was added in stages, beginning in the 1890s. So, itâs a broken pipe (galvanized), under the front yard (again). I call a plumber. Itâs going to be around $3500 or so to fix it, because itâs a long run from the street, and they donât patch galvanized, they replace it.
For reference, this is what a $3500 hole looks like:
So, the run from the manifold was replaced with PEX, and brought under the house to the nearest pipe. This, I learned, is called a âhome run.â All houses have oneâa cold line comes from the source, and then things branch from the âhome run.â In this case it was tied into the spot where the old pipe comes up out of the ground and goes into the first bathroom, the one installed in the 1890s. Then another pipe goes away under the house from there. Awesome!
We turn the water back on at the meter, and . . . that bathroom is the only places where water is working. Eh? So, the plumbers go back under the house, and start working again. Turns out that bathroom is piped from the main, and the rest of the house is piped from the main, but in some way that isnât obvious. So, they spend time and find where the âotherâ pipe comes up from underground is, cut it off, run another âhome runâ of PEX from the main to it. Yay!
Boo! Turns out that activates the âmiddle waterâ in the house. Itâs for the kitchen, and a bathroom that was added in the early 2000s. Another âback bathroom,â added (I think) in the 1920s, and the outside hose spigots, donât work at all. Those are piped in in yet some other way that nobody knows. By then the plumbers had been at it for around 8 hours, and it was 6pm.
So next week, which is the soonest that the plumbers can come back, they will have to, apparently, run two more âhome runsâ to deal with the bathroom and the spigots. In general, a house has one âhome run,â from which all the fixtures feed. This house will have four, because itâs âcheaperâ to run a series of home runs than it is to re-pipe everything. And I write âcheaperâ because as he was leaving the plumber said âabout the estimate we did for this job, weâre going to need to talk about that.â Heâs also a friend, so Iâm not worried about getting ripped offâif anything Iâm worried that heâll feel like he canât charge me the going rate. I handed him a bottle of bourbon (Castle & Key, funnily enough) and said âyeah, I bet.â
There is a lot to love about old houses. I love to do the repairs and remodeling. Iâve put a lot of sweat into that place. But when things go wrong, they go expensively wrong. The add-on construction that happens over the lifespan of these houses makes it hard to go into a project with a clear sense of how itâs going to end. Every time I pull off a baseboard, or pry off the paneling in a closet to update it, I know that Iâm going to find something that will triple the cost of the project.
This plumbing work? Ugh. I wonât be surprised if Iâm in for another $1k or $2k. FSCK today.
ETA; typo
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Jesus! At this point, is it more cost effective to just rip out all the plumbing and start fresh? 
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Right? My thoughts exactly. But apparently it isnât, at least in this case. I do, however, have a nice little âhistory of American plumbingâ under the house. PEX, PVC, galvanized, stainless, copper, and iron. I should charge people for tours.
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Wait until you find out about the wooden sewer lines.
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Charge people extra for selfies!
Not sure if a real thing or a jokeâŚ
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Oh, its a real thing in some places!
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Yeah, wooden lines were a thing in the Colonial period (in the US). Basically theyâre hollowed-out tree trunks joined together to make a line.
Examples are found from time to time:
And, some made of creosote-treated wood:
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Galvanized is the worst. It flakes off pieces and clogs things up.
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Philadelphia had wooden water mains.
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According to Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks (FWP), the animal she hunted wasnât a wolf but a dog.
The woman took to social media, claiming she âsmokedâ a wolf pup with pictures to prove it, including one of the shot and skinned animal.
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Oh shit. That was a true story?! I was really hoping that was just some stupid social media hoax thing.
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Even if it actually was a wolf pup, she should go to jail.
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Especially if it was a wolf pup.
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Thatâs really fucking awful.
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Looks like theyâre already trying to shift the blame onto the fans, rather than poor crowd control and the police tear gassing the people in the stands.
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Glad Iâve never used this payment app.
But then, it sounds like it could be used for unauthorized withdrawals. 
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Just so this doesnât drop off the radar, in January Samuel Elliott raped a drunk young girl while she was vomiting. Nine months later, there has yet to be any justice. Over the past few months, while the young woman continues to deal with her trauma, waiting to have to relive it when she testifies, Mr. Elliott has had:
Session: 04/18/2022 1:45 PM, Rescheduled
Session: 05/16/2022 2:00 PM, Rescheduled
Session: 07/11/2022 1:30 PM, Rescheduled
Session: 08/09/2022 2:30 PM, Rescheduled
Session: 10/04/2022 10:15 AM, Rescheduled
Session:11/28/2022 1:45 PM, Judicial Officer: Haughton, Valeri
Fsck him. As @milliefink noted:
At this rate, itâs not even clear when a judge will have the chance to do that.
15 Likes
