Saturday, May 05, 2007
Exams are over
One year in NUS is over. How fast. This is my first time blogging in a while, but the blogger interface is totally screwed up. The alignments are all wrong, but the text boxes seem to work. Hopefully the publishing button works too. Don't know if the problem is because of my comp. Tried both IE and firefox and the result is the same. Tried it with and without ZA and it still looks the same.
On wed, I came home to find the toilet choked. What "fun"... After a few attempts to clear it ourselves, we finally called a plumber in yesterday, who informed us that the main pipe was choked and he couldn't do a thing about it. The other plumber he contacted for us told us to contact management, which we did anyway since the main pipe probably isn't our problem.
Yesterday, the property officer brought another contractor along, who flooded our toilet and happily concluded that it wasn't the main pipe because the other floors weren't flooded. He ignored the other evidence, such as certain, erm, things floating out. Contact me directly for more details, heh. He explained reasonably that a lower main pipe blockage would have flooded the lower floors first. Correct, but what if the block was just below my floor? He said the upper floor will flood too. Not so correct. It makes more sense that the immediately above the blockage will flood first. For upper floors to be affected, the lower ones must all get it first. Thus his initial assessment was totally off and he seemed more interested in pushing the responsibility away. Tried to contact the upper floor owner to see if it's a main pipe problem or just our unit, but the owner was either not around or doing an excellent job pretending to be empty air.
At around 12, water started coming up by itself, which is a strong hint that it is indeed a main pipe block right below my floor. That seemed to fit all the available evidence. The upper floor owner probably took a shower at around that time.
Today, the property officer got some people in to fix it. They method seems to consist of sticking a helical metal rod down the pipe and vibrating it around in the hope that it would enter the correct pipe. Apparently it depends a lot on luck, which was sorely lacking today. After trying for 3 hours or so in an inch of filthy water, they brought in another machine, which operates on the same principle. The end of the rod kept entering the wrong pipe. They couldn't reach the main pipe where the blockage was.
In the end, they had to remove the toilet bowl. Since it's made of ceramic, it cracked. Ceramics are brittle, they have low ductility :P However, it apparently provides more direct access to the main pipe. After some more time of poking around the hole, they managed to clear the blockage, and our toilet is finally dry again, although the floor is still filthy and there's also a broken toilet bowl in the corner. They'll be coming on Monday to replace it, but at least there's no permanent stench wafting from the toilet area.
On wed, I came home to find the toilet choked. What "fun"... After a few attempts to clear it ourselves, we finally called a plumber in yesterday, who informed us that the main pipe was choked and he couldn't do a thing about it. The other plumber he contacted for us told us to contact management, which we did anyway since the main pipe probably isn't our problem.
Yesterday, the property officer brought another contractor along, who flooded our toilet and happily concluded that it wasn't the main pipe because the other floors weren't flooded. He ignored the other evidence, such as certain, erm, things floating out. Contact me directly for more details, heh. He explained reasonably that a lower main pipe blockage would have flooded the lower floors first. Correct, but what if the block was just below my floor? He said the upper floor will flood too. Not so correct. It makes more sense that the immediately above the blockage will flood first. For upper floors to be affected, the lower ones must all get it first. Thus his initial assessment was totally off and he seemed more interested in pushing the responsibility away. Tried to contact the upper floor owner to see if it's a main pipe problem or just our unit, but the owner was either not around or doing an excellent job pretending to be empty air.
At around 12, water started coming up by itself, which is a strong hint that it is indeed a main pipe block right below my floor. That seemed to fit all the available evidence. The upper floor owner probably took a shower at around that time.
Today, the property officer got some people in to fix it. They method seems to consist of sticking a helical metal rod down the pipe and vibrating it around in the hope that it would enter the correct pipe. Apparently it depends a lot on luck, which was sorely lacking today. After trying for 3 hours or so in an inch of filthy water, they brought in another machine, which operates on the same principle. The end of the rod kept entering the wrong pipe. They couldn't reach the main pipe where the blockage was.
In the end, they had to remove the toilet bowl. Since it's made of ceramic, it cracked. Ceramics are brittle, they have low ductility :P However, it apparently provides more direct access to the main pipe. After some more time of poking around the hole, they managed to clear the blockage, and our toilet is finally dry again, although the floor is still filthy and there's also a broken toilet bowl in the corner. They'll be coming on Monday to replace it, but at least there's no permanent stench wafting from the toilet area.
posted by cosine @ 2:10 PM 
