Easiest job on the list, until the plumber went looking for the sewer lateral

Garage conversion, 380 square feet, I thought it'd be the easy one. Slab was already there, walls were already there, roof was already there.

My plumber cut two test holes to find the sewer lateral so we could tie in the bathroom. It wasn't where the county's card said it was. He cut a third hole. Not there either. Turns out at some point somebody rerouted the whole lateral around the far side of the house, probably when the old clay line failed, and nobody updated anything because why would they.

So instead of a nine foot tie-in I've got a 40 foot run under the driveway, and the driveway is the only way to get a truck to the back of the lot. We saw cut it, dug it, laid the pipe, and drove over plywood for five weeks.

That one surprise was about $6,800. The unit's rented now to a nurse who works nights and I've had exactly one text from her in seven months, so I'm not complaining. But I'd budgeted my whole contingency for framing surprises and spent it all before we framed anything.