Saturday, January 25, 2020

Unwelcome surprise

So do you ever have moments where you want to pretend you didn't hear something?  There are times I do this just for fun when my wife is talking to me about various things - "Huh, sorry, didn't hear you?".  Usually this involves something that was forgotten.. theoretically speaking that might include something like a dry towel..  

Then there are the times when you do wish you didn't hear something.  Usually this coincides with some very unenjoyable event for me.  

This was an instance of the second item.  I know it is bad when my wife calls and the first words are "we have a problem!".  I really don't want to hear that. 

The next words that come out are all in a semi-intelligible rush -  "water.. pipe broke.. spraying everywhere.  Where are YOU?"!

I was able to gather after a minute that the pipe was outside.  Ok, that is either really good or really bad.  Fortunately, we had been doing enough work on the house that my wife and son were aware of where the shutoffs (multiple) were outside.  Their first attempt ended up being the one for the water heater only.  Fortunately, the second shutoff did work.  I say fortunately because the problem was downstream of the shutoff at the house and not between the house and the road.

When I got home, I found that the line going to the long defunct sprinkler system had broken loose at a 90 degree elbow just *before* a shutoff valve. 

When I had received my wifes somewhat frantic call I was still at work and it is roughly an hour home.  I got on my way quickly at that point - it was somewhere between 6-7pm already.  I was able to talk my wife through what I mainly needed to cap it (which I hoped was all that was required since I hadn't seen it yet).  She went to Lowes and picked up a variety of pipe sizes since they couldn't determine the exact size.  

It worked out that she had the size required.  The only problem was that my pipe cement was expired - normally I don't even pay attention but I happened to decide to check since if this broke loose again I may not know immediately so better safe than sorry.  I made the run to Walmart at that point and got a fresh pack of Oatey cement/primer. 

I ended up ripping out the lines that went to the sprinkler zones at the back of the house so I had room to splice in a new piece of pipe.   You can see below that I spliced in a fairly long (~ 2 feet) piece of pipe which was longer than needed but it let me reuse the clamp that was attached to the wall to hold it before.  I didn't have that clamp in place for the picture though.




I think I finally got it done about 9:30pm and had the water to the house back on around 11:30pm.  I wanted to give the pipe cement a bit of time to fully cure. The extra parts in the weeds/grass were from the sprinkler plumbing I ripped out.

So we figure we had a sideways geyser for probably several hours before it was noticed.  The sort of funny part is that my wife had gotten out of work and she laid down for a while in the master bedroom just feet away from the break.  Apparently at one point she got up very sleepily and noticed the sink only trickled but then laid down again.  Next time she woke she thought it was raining and then realized that wasn't the issue..

So our next water bill will be a little higher than normal but it could have been a lot worse.  I'm just glad the pipe wasn't in the house and am grateful that my son and wife were able to find and turn the shutoff.

I do have one extra project out of this now though.  When they shutoff water to the water heater - there are 2 valves.  One is an old brass gate valve and the other a newer PVC valve that someone spliced in instead of fixing the deteriorated old brass valve.  My wife had my son shut off both and the brass valve was pretty much shot and leaks when you try to close it. So now I will go ahead and put something else in that doesn't leak.




2 Corinthians 5:1 English Standard Version (ESV)

Our Heavenly Dwelling


For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.


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