We ’ve been feeling somewhat good about ourselves lately . It has been a beautiful , modest February — compared to the January thatnearly lave us out — and we ’ve been able-bodied to action a caboodle around the farm . On the docket this preceding week was to have a bush hogger follow out and clear some ley for us . All was well and dependable … until he get under one’s skin a niggling too secretive to a water level admittance level . I came home from doing some work in town , turned on the faucet to wash my hand , and then nothing . Not a drip mold came out .
No Water: Day 1
We went out to enquire the area where the waterline is buried . We did n’t find the news leak forthwith , but after a half minute or so of searching , we noticed some water supply run from the top of the ridge of our Bee Hill , the area of the farm where we keep our hive . It was sprinkling a minute , but definitely not raining intemperately enough to spring a small current .
We accompany the flow of piss a short length , and then try something . The vertical admittance pipe , which stick to out of the flat coat 6 inch or so , was covered with a rock , and from underneath we could see the H2O streaming out . We found our leak !
Mr. B ran down the hill to the water meter and shutoff valve . As presently as he open up the lid , the water system man show up . He watched the meter for a bit to determine the water stream — about 30 gallons a minute — and then close off the valve for us . This was somewhat lucky timing , as we had n’t yet learn what we need to do to change state off the water .
Back up on the hill , we instantly started grok around the vertical access pipe so that we could see down to the water level and look into the problem . Unfortunately , the overly saturate soil meant that the kettle of fish we were dig quickly fill up with weewee . Because we could n’t see down to the billet , so the fix got put on hold until the next twenty-four hours .
That ’s when things got complicated . That night I do down with a breadbasket bug — all horrible timing . Not only was I bed - ridden and unable to facilitate with the fix , we had no running water supply for a boot . Fortunately , due to the rain we had the day of the chance event , our creeks were full , so we had fulfil up some buckets of water to have on hand for flushing . ( We just did n’t imagine we ’d have to blush so much … but enough about that . )
No Water: Day 2
The next twenty-four hour period , while I was incapacitated , Mr. B and a dyad dear friends — really , they are the good — continued the digging . And there was a lot of digging . They dug a trench around the pipe and were able-bodied to describe the problem area : a crack on the pipe just after the valve . It had looked like the vertical accession pipage had been forced down on it — in all probability by the bush squealer — induce the wrong . By this point , it was previous and we needed to buy supplies for the reparation , so we had to drop another evening waterless .
No Water: Day 3
Finally , on Day 3 of no water , we were ready to make the mending . Mr. B ’s first programme was to fix the PVC with a plastic repair coupler ( aka a slip coupler ) , but that did n’t work . It leaked when we turned the water back on . He had to cut the charge card coupler back off , which entail the kettle of fish filled up with body of water . Again . In club to see the work that needed to be done , he ended up scooping 50 buckets full of piss out of the kettle of fish . While he ’d purchased a 20 - foot thermionic vacuum tube to utilise as a siphon in face this go on , it was n’t quite long enough , and his hamstrings still feel the exercising . Rachael Dupree
Eventually the weewee seepage slowed enough for him to install a alloy compression coupler . This was really a more ideal result than the plastic coupling because it could go on the water level wet or juiceless . ( give thanks good , because if it had to be dry , it would have been yet another 24-hour interval until we could make the full reparation . )
The Silver Lining
While it was n’t on the nose the way we planned to spend our weekend , we lucked out in so many ways . Not only did we learn a tidy sum through the process , we had the financial backing of our kind ally and neighbors . In the end , we count on that we deliver ourselves $ 1,000 in emergency plumbing system repairs — the DIY fix cost us only $ 50 . Plus , we avow the urine force per unit area is better than ever .
Rachael Dupree
Rachael Dupree
Rachael Dupree
Rachael Dupree
Rachael Dupree
