Anybody Have Any Friends at the City of Bend Water/Sewer (or like to plumb for fun)?

I’ve documented my plumbing troubles in the past, and it appears things are only going to get worse.

I had another issue in early December, and called Mike at Handy Rooter who has come out to my house in the past. He snaked the line with a water blaster, found some stuff to knock loose, we flushed the toilets and ran water for a while, no problems. He gave us a 30-day warranty and we thought we were good to go.

Two weeks later, water’s backing up into our drains again. He comes back out, goes out even further, nearly to the city hookup, and knocks out some more stuff. We ran more water for a while, no problems, so we thought we were good.

Two weeks later (four weeks after the original appointment, still under warranty) we get water back up again. He snakes it this time, all the way to the end of his snake (150 feet worth) and well up to city line. Wash, rinse, repeat, we appear to be OK.

This morning, my wife starts some laundry, we’re backing up again — she just called me at the office to tell me the wonderful news.

There’s no way that in less than a week we’d have a full-system clog like that in our sewer line. So we’re left with one of two options: There’s a problem in the City sewer line (which runs through our backyard — it’s an old, weird home). Or there’s a problem with our pipe, which I’m hoping it isn’t, but considering when two of the problems occurred (after big rain and after big snow melt off, followed by freeze), there’s a chance. To send one of those cameras up our pipe is going to be (minimum) $200 — which is $200 I certainly don’t have right now, so I’m hoping a phone call to the city will get them to come out and inspect their pipe.

But I have a feeling getting the city to come out and do it will be a pain in the rear. Anybody know anybody at the city of Bend that can poke them for me? Or does anybody know a plumber who has one of those cameras that owes you a favor? I just want to know one way or another. Then again, it’s not like I can afford to replace the pipe right now, either, as that’ll probably be a couple grand as I double my homeowners insurance will pay for it. But it’d be nice to know the problem, regardless.

Update on 1/5/08: Talked to the City, and they came out and looked at the flow coming out at the end, and things were flowing fine. So there’s a problem with something in our yard — frickin’ awesome. I need to find somebody who can run a camera under there and see what’s going on, as we have no drainage right now. Bloody frickin’ lovely…