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Thursday - received $800 water bill. Water company says 120 gal/hour. Yeah they noticed it a month ago... didn't say crap to us.
Checked all over house. In and under everything. Around foundation etc... all dry. Called wife's plumber cousin... he found the wet area between the house and the road (150 yds of front yard). The pipe from the water meter to the house is NOT straight. The water meter is probably 40 yds offset from the front of the house. Why? Who the heck knows...
So we started digging. Supposed to be 18" to 24" down right? Nope...
Looked like a bunch of drunken gophers were digging out there. We would dig down, find water, turn the water on and see where it was pushing through from. Then we would dig that way for a ways. Eventually we were about 36" down and were no closer to finding the actual pipe but we thought we were near the leak.
Asked the wife how long she wanted to work on Saturday before we actually went out and rented an excavator. So of course on Saturday we went to pickup a Kubota U17 mini-excavator. They rent for $175/day here.
Brought that baby home and got to work. Found that leak pretty quickly but it was almost 5' down in the ground. When my wife was in the hole it was up to her nose.
Got it all dug out... cut out and replaced. Waited an hour or so... pressure tested and wall was good. Left it like that for another hour or so watching the meter and running water to make sure that was the only leak. Filled the hole(s) and trench. Used the Bobcat tractor to back drag with the bucket to smooth it all out. Pretty smooth now. Get a rain or two on it this winter and it will be all smooth and nice. A bit of grass seed and it will all be good.
Had about 4 hours left on the excavator rental so we went to the in-laws and helped digging out and expanding a small pond.
So it was a sort of DIY weekend. I had never run an excavator before so that was fun. At least my oldest son had a bit of experience on one so it went pretty fast.
Checked all over house. In and under everything. Around foundation etc... all dry. Called wife's plumber cousin... he found the wet area between the house and the road (150 yds of front yard). The pipe from the water meter to the house is NOT straight. The water meter is probably 40 yds offset from the front of the house. Why? Who the heck knows...
So we started digging. Supposed to be 18" to 24" down right? Nope...
Looked like a bunch of drunken gophers were digging out there. We would dig down, find water, turn the water on and see where it was pushing through from. Then we would dig that way for a ways. Eventually we were about 36" down and were no closer to finding the actual pipe but we thought we were near the leak.
Asked the wife how long she wanted to work on Saturday before we actually went out and rented an excavator. So of course on Saturday we went to pickup a Kubota U17 mini-excavator. They rent for $175/day here.
Brought that baby home and got to work. Found that leak pretty quickly but it was almost 5' down in the ground. When my wife was in the hole it was up to her nose.
Got it all dug out... cut out and replaced. Waited an hour or so... pressure tested and wall was good. Left it like that for another hour or so watching the meter and running water to make sure that was the only leak. Filled the hole(s) and trench. Used the Bobcat tractor to back drag with the bucket to smooth it all out. Pretty smooth now. Get a rain or two on it this winter and it will be all smooth and nice. A bit of grass seed and it will all be good.
Had about 4 hours left on the excavator rental so we went to the in-laws and helped digging out and expanding a small pond.
So it was a sort of DIY weekend. I had never run an excavator before so that was fun. At least my oldest son had a bit of experience on one so it went pretty fast.