Here's what's been happening to me for the last couple months.
Downstairs toilet's flush got progressively slower over a period of months. Plunging no longer helped, so I bought a toilet snake. I fed it down the drain and found that it was difficult to twist. When I brought it back up, the cutting end was clogged with root material.
Oh. Crap.
Fast forward to a few plumbers making their way through to gather data for their bids. Camera footage showed almost complete blockage due to tree roots in the sewer pipe. The town came out and scoped from the curb all the way to our main stack. That section was clear. We now know the impacted section of sewer pipe exists under the foundation between the downstairs bathroom and the main stack, ~ 6 feet long. 2/3 of that length is directly below our HVAC unit.
We get a few different options and quotes for the jobs. One is for pipe-bursting from the curb to the toilet, which avoids having to move the furnace. $13k. The rest involve moving the furnace, cutting a hole in the foundation, replacing the affected sewer pipe, filling the hole with gravel and concrete, and then replacing the furnace.
In the end, we went with a company that was in the top third, cost-wise, but we got a new air-handler and heat pump as part of the job. The one that needed to be moved was original to the home (1970s construction), so we felt that moving it and putting it back would only encourage it's untimely failure.
The work was completed last week. The HVAC guys were kind enough to put the washer/drier back in the utility room and connect it up. Unfortunately, the cold water connection had a slow leak which I only discovered a few days later when I noticed some swelling at the seams of the laminate floor just outside the utility closet.
I just took care of that problem last night. The swelling will go down as the moisture dies and will likely be hard to detect. (I know because we had a problem in the kitchen when the dishwasher's gasket started leaking a couple years ago...).
So now all I have to take care of is the bathroom. I tore out the vanity a few days ago and we've gotten a quote from a drywall guy to replace all the ceiling and a couple walls. He's asking $200/day for 2 days, which seems to be reasonable for our area.
After the bathroom is drywalled and mudded, I will sand it and paint it, reinstall the light fixture and mirror, put in new light and exhaust fan switches, lay a new vinyl floor (ordered today), new door trim and baseboards, new vanity/sink, old handtowel and toilet paper holders, and finally put the old toilet back on the new flange.
