I just heard from Neil at Nelco, and he gave me the low-down on what they’ve decided to do so far, though the estimate won’t be ready until tomorrow. He said that instead of just replacing the sewer line under the street, they’re going to start excavating right at the foundation of the house and work their way out into the street in order to avoid having to locate the line under the pavement (so they’ll only tear up a minimum of the street). They’ll bore under the sidewalk and the trees in front of my house, which I’m grateful for–I like those trees. They’ll also have to close this portion of 300 East completely, so it looks like my mom’s street and 400 East will be seeing a lot more traffic when they start work. They’re expecting to have problems with the water table, so they may have to pump water out of the trench and they’ll definitely have to shore up the sides, since the layout of my yard won’t allow for a very wide trench. They’re going to put an allowance for landscaping in the estimate as well, but they’ll leave that part up to me since it will be months before sod could be laid down.
This job is already bigger than anybody expected, and Neil said that it was going to be very expensive. I won’t know until tomorrow how much my part of it will cost, so we’re not 100% sure that we’ll proceed with the repairs. I’m just glad that my homeowner’s insurance will cover almost all of it. If my part comes to less than about $1,500, I think we’ll be able to handle that much. Somebody came over to look at the camper yesterday, and selling that would help a great deal. We still haven’t paid the house payment that’s due on February 1–tomorrow should decide whether the check gets dropped in the mail, or goes towards getting a new place.