What on earth is this picture supposed to be? For those of you who have never had to do this, or who have no construction knowledge. First let me help those without construction knowledge.  

Your stick built homes are constructed on top of a cement foundation, buried in the ground, even slab foundations are somewhat buried, but if there is a basement it may not be as buried.  Either way, my point is that the foundation is under the house and often buried.

Many homes when they were built back in the 40-60s, when they poured the foundations, they put all the rebar and plumbing pipes and electrical in, then they poured in the concrete.  Thereby making those pipes and such very difficult to get to for any kind of repairs, and also possibly damaged by land movements.

They’ve since figured out a slightly better way now.  But many of the homes we own are not new construction.  So when one of our homes that had old cast iron pipes for the kitchen sink area had a problem, they were extremely old and they collapsed, so they were backing up due to blockages.  We had to decide how we were going to fix it.  

Well first  we had to get the plumber to snake the line and find out what was happening.  Then when we thought it was a simple blockage, we started addressing the problem. Except along the way, the pipe kept collapsing and we figured out it was not going to be a small fix.  So now the question becomes do we want to dig up the entire foundation to get access to those pipes, or do we just want to abandon the pipe and simply reroute it?

Now here is where the picture comes in.  We chose to reroute the pipe and instead cut up our driveway, which is a whole lot less deep and much easier to access.  We would not always recommend this as it depends on several factors as to which is the best decision for you.  

But keep in mind, this home is 3000 miles away in Florida.  Yes I can still be in WA state and take care of homes all over the globe.  It takes a little bit more brain work and less brawn work as my husband would like to just run over there.  But as I have shown him doing this for many years now, there’s a time and place for brawn and for the brain.  The cool thing is that we have helped one of our team members start his own plumbing business now as well and that is a way bigger return on our investment of time and money as his family works towards a better financial future for them.

All adventures we would not get to have, had we not decided to invest outside of where we live, and learn to work smarter not harder. Until the next adventure!