Title - Fixing broken macerator story Tags - callumstory
A few days ago, Maria, Mabel and I contracted norovirus.
It was flowing out both ends for 24 hours and then we were left with dehydration, fatigue, achy joints and a headache.
Once we began to to recover and regain our strength, we discovered that our toilet wouldn’t drain and the water backed up.
This is never nice but it’s particularly unpleasant for us because this particular toilet has a macerator installed.
If you don’t know what a macerator is, it’s a machine that’s often installed in rooms where the pipes aren’t big enough to handle waste as it comes.
In our case, we live in a building built in approximately 1800 with strange plumbing, so the sink, bath and toilet are connected to the macertor, which breaks down the waste before shipping it off down the pipes.
The problem is, if you flush baby wipes, plastic or anything other than small quantities or toilet paper and water then the macerator gets blocked.
Ok, no biggie. Toilet blockages are usually easy to solve, right? Try a plunger. Flush some chemicals down. Something usually works.
Well, in the case of macertors, you can’t plunge and you can’t use chemicals as both will break the machine, which costs upwards of £1000 to replace.
All you can really do is take the thing apart and manually remove the blockage, hopefully before the motor burns out trying to clear it.
Oh, and guess how much it costs for a plumber to unblock it?
£150 +
Every time you use slightly too much loo roll or someone accidentally flushes a wipe (with kids and guests in the house, it happens often enough).
The reason is that unblocking a macerator is the worst nightmare for most plumber’s. It’s the job nobody wants to do.
Except for specialist macerator plumbers who, of course, charge a premium.
So… back to our post-norovirus blockage.
Look, I felt like a crap (pardon the pun) and just wanted to sleep.
But someone had to deal with the toilet problem.
At this point, I reminded myself of the hundreds of pounds we’ve spent on plumbing services to unblock and repair the macerator.
I worked myself into outrage at how the plumber could charge £150 for such simple and fast work. “£150 to unblock a f***ing toilet?” I repeated to my wife.
In the end, my stubbornness got the better of me and I refused to pay the money and wait for two days. Instead, I watched some YouTube videos, and made myself a “couch plumber”, until I was confident enough to unlock the macertor myself.
Well, let me tell ya, that was not a pleasant job - especially after the entire household had spent the previous 48 hours suffering from diarrhea and vomiting.
Anyway, to my surprise, I managed to clear the toilet and save the money.
But the next day, refelcting on the experience, I realise what an idiot I had been.
How so?
Well, there are three reasons why I’d been stupid:
- My time is worth more than the £150 and better invested elsewhere
- I thought of the £150 as an expense on low value service. In reality, it’s an investment in a solution to a horrible, time-sensitive, hard-to-solve problem.
PURPOSES:
- Value of time
- Sell the hole not the drill