Posted: 10/1/2012 1:55:10 PM EDT
I came back from an out of town trip to discover a broken water pipe under my driveway. This is the pipe that feeds the house from the meter. I called the water dept to come shut it off and they estimated that I wasted around 100,000 gallons.  Luckily, I'm pretty well prepared water wise. I've got plenty to drink and I filled up a couple of 5 gallon water totes for dishes, flushing toilets, etc. I won't make my family do the bathing with no hot water thing, so we'll be showering at my parents house tonight. I could see that someone who wasn't prepared could be freaking out. We'll see how bad this hurts my checkbook tomorrow when the plumber comes out. |
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I came back from an out of town trip to discover a broken water pipe under my driveway. This is the pipe that feeds the house from the meter. I called the water dept to come shut it off and they estimated that I wasted around 100,000 gallons. Luckily, I'm pretty well prepared water wise. I've got plenty to drink and I filled up a couple of 5 gallon water totes for dishes, flushing toilets, etc. I won't make my family do the bathing with no hot water thing, so we'll be showering at my parents house tonight. I could see that someone who wasn't prepared could be freaking out. We'll see how bad this hurts my checkbook tomorrow when the plumber comes out. and again when the water bill arrives 
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snip We'll see how bad this hurts my checkbook tomorrow when the plumber comes out. and again when the water bill arrives
chick I worked with fought her city water dept for over a year on a $700+ for one months usage water bill; she even had a plumber check out the line from the meter to the house and everything inside for leaks; no leaks........ 
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A neighbor broke my main line to my cabin-pushing a stump up with a backhoe-on my property. Then the asshole didnt call me, or turn the water off at my meter. He let it run through his dog pen for 2 weeks, even put a pallet over the stream running into the lake so his dog could cross without getting wet. Long story short, my bill was almost 900.00. After the one time adjustment, I still had to pay 300.00. And they assured me, if there was ever a next time, it was all on me. Good luck.
Taught me a few lessons though. 1. My neighbor is an asshole. 2. Dont go 2 weeks without checking on my cabin. 3. Always have enough PVC and connectors on hand to repair leaks, with fresh glue and primer. 4. I need a fence. |
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Quoted: A neighbor broke my main line to my cabin-pushing a stump up with a backhoe-on my property. Then the asshole didnt call me, or turn the water off at my meter. He let it run through his dog pen for 2 weeks, even put a pallet over the stream running into the lake so his dog could cross without getting wet. Long story short, my bill was almost 900.00. After the one time adjustment, I still had to pay 300.00. And they assured me, if there was ever a next time, it was all on me. Good luck. Taught me a few lessons though. 1. My neighbor is an asshole. 2. Dont go 2 weeks without checking on my cabin. 3. Always have enough PVC and connectors on hand to repair leaks, with fresh glue and primer. 4. I need a fence. I am reminded every day why I hate <most> people  |
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Quoted: I came back from an out of town trip to discover a broken water pipe under my driveway. This is the pipe that feeds the house from the meter. I Hopefully whoever poured your driveway didn't take any short cuts and put your mainline in a sleeve under the driveway. |
My main water line busted underground three years back and I had no problem with getting water company to make a nice adjustment. They'll give you one offense then it's own as I found out the next summer when I had a line bust in the slab for about a month before I found it........
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My main line busted a few months ago - right at the meter. Citi wouldn't fix it and the plumbers in my area were real sweethearts about it. So I went to lowes and got the 3/4" NTP to PEX gatorbite fitting and used some of the 1000' spool PEX I bought a few years ago. Plumbed the whole thing to the house in less than an hour. The old line, was electrical conduit - kid you not. I've not seen crappy work like that in some time!
You are fortunate that the town's water authority will adjust the reading for you. Some won't do that. Could have been a nasty bill! |
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A neighbor broke my main line to my cabin-pushing a stump up with a backhoe-on my property. Then the asshole didnt call me, or turn the water off at my meter. He let it run through his dog pen for 2 weeks, even put a pallet over the stream running into the lake so his dog could cross without getting wet. Long story short, my bill was almost 900.00. After the one time adjustment, I still had to pay 300.00. And they assured me, if there was ever a next time, it was all on me. Good luck. Taught me a few lessons though. 1. My neighbor is an asshole. 2. Dont go 2 weeks without checking on my cabin. 3. Always have enough PVC and connectors on hand to repair leaks, with fresh glue and primer. 4. I need a fence. Sounds like you need more land between you and the neighbor |
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Update: Plumber his here and is working. To avoid the driveway issue, we considered simply rerouting the water main to the back of the house. That was a no go as the pipe in the back of the house is smaller than the 1" main in front (which would create negative pressure). First - they need to fix the faulty shutoff valve in front of the house. Once that is done, they will turn it off at the house and cut the meter back on. If water runs, it's definitely in the driveway. He said that this will be the test to make sure the leak isn't up under the house somewhere and is just coming out at the driveway (shudder). After that's confirmed, they'll run a temporary line to the new cutoff valve so we will have water tonight. Next step is a boring company will come out and bore a line under the driveway. They'll put a sleeve in and the new pipe will slide into that sleeve. Then they'll connect it all up from there. Estimated cost is $2,850 (unless the leak is under the slab - then I have a much bigger problem). ETA: Regarding being without water - last night wan't terrible. The hard part was keeping everyone to using one toilet and not flushing after only urinating. Of course, that didn't happen, so I ended up lugging a bucket of water upstairs to manually flush. I had a few of the 7 gallon water cubes handy so that helped. Handwashing and brusing teeth. etc was easily accomplished. I could see in a long term SHTF event where municipal water wasn't readily available, the latrine issue could become problematic. Especially if city sewer wasn't functional. |
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Mark, that doesn't sound too bad to get them to come out and do the repair.
If the line is a ways under the slab laterally, why not abandon it and come into the house in a more expedient way without cutting up much of your floor? As far as 'undisciplined flushing'  , this is a wakeup call for how folks wil react to major issues and it ain't gonna be pretty in the population at large.
It's scary to think what would happen if water and sewer went out for a long time. |
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As far as 'undisciplined flushing' , this is a wakeup call for how folks wil react to major issues and it ain't gonna be pretty in the population at large.
It's scary to think what would happen if water and sewer went out for a long time. If it's yellow, let it mellow. If it's brown, flush it down. |
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Quoted: Mark, that doesn't sound too bad to get them to come out and do the repair. If the line is a ways under the slab laterally, why not abandon it and come into the house in a more expedient way without cutting up much of your floor? As far as 'undisciplined flushing' , this is a wakeup call for how folks wil react to major issues and it ain't gonna be pretty in the population at large.It's scary to think what would happen if water and sewer went out for a long time. The leak was confirmed to be under the driveway. That pipe is being abandoned and a new line in a sleeve is being run. Plumber found all sorts of shoddy plumbing work done by the builder that had to get fixed (like using a faucet valve instead of a ball valve for a cutoff). All of that is getting fixed. Plus there was some issue with the sprinkler system that was being fed from the main line that had to be addressed. I'm pretty pleased with the price, given the amount of work that's going into it. Especially since they have to bore under the driveway. |