More Fun With Sewage

[jducoeur]

A status report, after a couple more days of this.

By Monday, the water in the sewer pipe had drained sufficiently that they could actually get into it. The Drain Guy (yes, that's his company name) spent basically all day working with drain snakes and cameras and locator beacons (and yes, they have some really clever technology) to prove that their original theory was correct: they could get the camera a good ways through, and then it stops just short of where the contractors across the street were digging a few weeks ago.

Today has all been phone calls, and routing the problem to the right places: from The Drain Guy to the city sewer department, to the civil engineer overseeing this work, to the contractors. (With a soupcon of talking to the insurance company.)

So we're now waiting for the contractors to fix what they broke. Fortunately, the city was already mildly pissed off at them, because their road patch there is turning into a sinkhole, and the contractors were apparently supposed to redo the job last week anyway. Now, they have been told that they need to deal with this as well.

Kudos where they are due: while I'm increasingly cranky at the contractors across the street, everyone I've worked with in the City of Somerville civil service has been great -- they've been promptly returning my phone calls, quickly coming over to look things over, and when they needed to pass the buck they've been passing it in the right directions. There's a negative stereotype that often adheres to the DPW, and it's totally wrong in this case: they've been the best part of this process...

Comments

[keshwyn]

Blahhhh.

But I agree - my experiences with the City of Somerville have all been pretty good too. Even if I don't live there anymore.

[drwex]

Yay for government that works more or less as it's supposed to.