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Famous Cost-Cutting Words: It Seemed Like a Good Idea At The Time!
Not long ago my wife brought to my attention the bubbling paint in the corner of our dining room. Our house is around 100 years old so I assumed there was a plumbing problem originating from the restroom upstairs. The corner of the dining room is not a 90-degree corner and because of past stains on the kitchen ceiling adjacent to the dining room, I assumed that corner was where the waste pipe took all its cargo to the basement and out.
After some difficulty pinning down a contractor or plumber, I finally found one who agreed to come have a look. When he did, he found a 100-year-old cast iron waste pipe with a crack in it.
In 2006 we moved our house. Yes, you heard me right! We literally jacked up our 100-year-old jewel and rolled wheels under her, and off we went from the highway to a property in the corner of a housing addition. We did this because a drug store wanted to purchase our property so I sold it. Not long after, my wife said she did not want to lose the memories of the old structure, so I negotiated for the house with the agreement that I would remove it in 30 days. Somehow we pulled that off, but now are finding the consequences of our valiant efforts to save the old girl.
When our contractor cut the wall open 10 days ago and found the problem, he told me we need to remove more of the lathe and plaster wall so that it could dry out. I volunteered. That was one exhausting afternoon, but I’m pretty good at destruction!
After it had dried for ten days they came to remove the old pipe and install the new one. Cast iron pipe that is 100 years old can be rather contrary, but our contractor removed the cracked pipe and had then left for lunch.
I examined the exposed PVC pipe while they were gone (they had already removed the cast iron). At the top of the wall, I noticed it was dripping water. This did not make sense because the upstairs bathroom was not in use regularly. Upstairs I looked at the shower and sink, thinking I would find one of them dripping. Nope.
My next move was to remove the tank lid off the toilet. There, I found to my surprise a two liter Coke bottle filled with water sitting in the toilet tank. Someone had placed it there as a cost-cutting measure to raise the water level and, hypothetically, save money because it takes less water to fill the tank.
Then I spotted it, the overflow tube had moisture inside. The two-liter bottle had raised the water so high that it was dripping nearly constantly into the overflow. In our town when you buy a dollar’s worth of water you pay two dollars in sewer charges.
The lesson learned here is that if you’re trying to save money, make sure you do it in a way that will actually save you money! There are a lot of ways to cut costs and not all of them make sense. Sometimes doing something quick and easy, like putting a two-liter bottle in your toilet tank, actually causes more harm than good. Most often, the actual solution isn’t much more difficult, but we simply don’t understand or know what that step is. I could have adjusted the float in the toilet tank and accomplished the same objective properly. This would have spared me all the extra cost to my water and sewer bill.
So when you’re looking for different ideas for how to save money, make sure you don’t choose ways that will save you money now but might cost you more in the future. Or worse still, methods that only give you the illusion of savings. For some foolproof means of saving money, check out our handy free list!