I am not sure if I should post this issue here, if not, please advice. Any feedback will be appreciated.

We are in Washington State.

On December 18th night, we found our toilet was leaking from the bottom of the bowl and flooded in the bathroom. We put some newspapers and the towels to stop water from the flood into living room. On Friday night, the situation got worse and we decided to call for service. We did not know that we were not the only one in our condominium community.

The plumber came on Saturday morning. When he got in around 7 AM, he identified as sewer back up and pulled out the toilet immediately. He put the snake down tried to clean out but it didn’t work. Then the sewer water came out from our drain and flooded everywhere in our first floor. Then he told us we need to turn off the water switch for the entire 12 units of community.

The plumber could not get through the obstruction because his snake can only reach 50 feet. The obstruction was over 50 feet down the pipe. And the residents kept flushing and made our situation worse.

Finally our president of HOA called the city for help in a snowy frozen cold weather. The city delivered the map of the pipe to our community. And later the city came again with 2 trucks and brought more powerful plumbing machine that reached more than 105 feet and finally got through the obstruction. The president of HOA told us that the root was clogging the line towards the street which is not community property, it is a city property and HOA insurance would not cover our damage. We did not have our own insurance; we were hoping that HOA insurance will cover our loss.

At the same time, we had to hire a disaster recovery company to clean up our place and cut our drywalls and take our laminate floor out and entire bathroom was gone because we don’t want have more structural damages and infections due to toxic water.

Right now, we still need to hire a lot of people to rebuild our drywalls, bathroom and floor and rebuy a lot of stuff for our house, such as rugs, furniture. Who should pay the bills for everything? Any thought? Plumber or the City or HOA or we have to pay for the bills? :confused:How do we proceed if we don’t have to pay? :(

Being somewhat rude, you did not have a professional plumber if he only had a 50 foot snake, I am not even a plumber and I have a 100 ft electric unit and a 100 ft manual one when I owned my rental units.

Also there should have been sewer clean outs to use, not to pull up the toleit.

On the other hand you call for help when the lead started, not wait 24 hours to start calling and then be into over 36 hours into the problem.

Exactly where the clog is, I can't believe it is a sewer main that was clogged, the HOA line would be the line anywhere on their property, and even on the right of way to the connection to the main. And to be honest I am surprised the city came out, no where that I have lived do they come out, but a real plumber would have to come out with rotor equipment.

So the exact location of the clog will make the difference, if the clog was on the city main, the city.
If it was on the line from the connection to the main to your unit, then it would be the HOA insurance.

Most likely the HOA just does not what to make a claim and be responsible.

Wow what a pickle. The plummer did nothing wrong. In hind site he could off shut the building down first but that wouldn't have maybe changed things. Remember there is still water in all of the toilets in other condos. So unless you talk to everybody in the condo they can still flush a tank somewhere. The tree root is an Act of God. The old saying its hard to sue city hall especially for an act of God. The city showed good faith and came out in bad conditions and also provide a layout print. I am not a lawyer Nor an expert in claims. I see its on mans land . Sorry I couldn't help but I just wanted you know the plummer did the normal thing and thought the clog was on your line as one might think.

Wow what a pickle. The plummer did nothing wrong. In hind site he could off shut the building down first but that wouldn't have maybe changed things. Remember there is still water in all of the toilets in other condos. So unless you talk to everybody in the condo they can still flush a tank somewhere. The tree root is an Act of God. The old saying its hard to sue city hall especially for an act of God. The city showed good faith and came out in bad conditions and also provide a layout print. I am not a lawyer Nor an expert in claims. I see its on mans land . Sorry I couldn't help but I just wanted you know the plummer did the normal thing and thought the clog was on your line as one might think.



Tree roots in a sewer do not qualify as Acts of God for insurance and any other claim of which I am aware.

I don't see that the plumber did the "normal" thing - as FrChuck said, I cannot believe a professional didn't have the equipment to find and break the obstruction.

Agree with all the above. We just recently had to have our sewage pipe snaked because a tenant was flushing an immense load of disposable wipes which didn't decompose quickly and ended up clogging up the pipe from her apartment on the end of the property all the way to the street. We had sewage backup in all the storage units in the basement.

Our plumber a)never removed any of the toilets and b)had a long enough "snake" to do the whole job from one area.

Why didn't you have homeowner's insurance? This would have paid for your damages. Just trying to "pin the tail on the donkey" on someone else while in your present predicament is going to work.